6 ms·
$3 CPM is far more expensive that generic Facebook adverts (known for being very cheap in terms of CPM), and it's a fairly typical price for digital advertising
by corin_ 14y ago
$3 CPM is far more expensive that generic Facebook adverts (known for being very cheap in terms of CPM), and it's a fairly typical price for digital advertising. Obviously it depends on the industry, the audience, etc. etc. but $3 is fairly common.
The reason it feels like such a terrible deal here is that you aren't paying $3 CPM to reach a new audience, you are paying $3 CPM to reach your audience. Sure, Facebook can argue "it's the most targeted audience possible, they're Mavericks fans!" but the counter to that is "of course they are, it's my brand that put this audience together".
Brands use Facebook because it's far more user-friendly than trying to collect your fans together on your own website, and therefore it's a better solution - easier for your fans means more will do it, so you have more people to market to. However the comparison is that they're people who have chosen to subscribe to you, and therefore the pricing comparison is not to digital advertising, but to writing to fans on a website, or a blog, or through email newsletters. This is why it feels like, and arguably is, a rip off.
As to the argument that it's needed from a user's point of view and that Facebook happens to be able to monetise to help their users (e.g. jeffwidman's comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4785852 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4785852) I'm not really sure. It's probably a valid point. I'm not a Facebook user myself (but my marketing work occasionally covers Facebook), my personal feeling is that if I follow a brand it's because I want to see their updates. All of their updates. In my head, it's the same as signing up to a newsletter, or subscribing to an RSS feed, just through a convenient third party. But as I don't do it myself, I'm happy to consider myself wrong, or in the minority, maybe if I was an active user following many brands that I care about I would find that getting 100% of their messages would ruin my Facebook experience.
- brendanib 14y agoAll great points. One note: the $3 I noted in the article actually isn't CPM, it's Cost-Per-Reach, or Cost Per Unique Impression. This is an important distinction because most digital/display advertising functions on a CPM basis, where one person might see an ad multiple times. On Facebook, when a Page promotes a post, that post is only displayed to that user once. Brands have a tendency to abuse the trust of someone opting-in, whether that's on Twitter, Facebook, Email, etc. When this happens, most people aren't aware enough to understand the cause and effect - instead of blaming the brand for being spammy, they get frustrated with Facebook. The News Feed Algorithm and Sponsored Stories are Facebook's way of ensuring a better user experience. By pushing brands to pay a small price for distribution, Facebook gets brands to think about what they're publishing and to take advantage of the targeting options that Facebook makes available, so that their content reaches the right people.
- dia80 14y agoIs it certain they will see the post? What if they don't login for a few days?
- gtd 14y agoA sponsored post can stick around for a while. But in any case, if a user doesn't come they don't charge. It's exceedingly unlikely that 100% of your followers will see a post, but you don't pay for that.
- illuminate 14y agoThen it doesn't reach the user and nobody is being charged as if it did.
- cyphersanctus 14y agoMake brands pay so that they think about what theyre publishing? Ridiculous. Ive got 3 million fans on facebook and my reach has gone from 8 million per week to 2 million. Posting the same type of content ive always posted. Its not a question of posting better things in order to maintain the reach i had before. Ive been doing this for three years and the switch that fb turned off two months ago is just a nasty way of saying thank you to the content generators that gave them billions of pageviews during the past years.
- MattRix 14y agoSpot on! One thing to note, when you said "my personal feeling is that if I follow a brand it's because I want to see their updates", the tricky think about facebook is that you don't "follow" a brand like you do on Twitter, you just "like" them. In my opinion, it's a small but important distinction. Just because you enjoy a certain brand doesn't mean you actually want to know every little thing they're doing.
- brendanib 14y agoYeah, great point here. Facebook really emphasized this difference awhile back when they started allowing users to "Like" a Page, but then choose to hide it from their News Feed. This allows me, as a Facebook user, to complete my profile and declare that I like something, even if the marketing that the associated Page is doing isn't something I want to see. This ensures that profile information remains accurate, which is critical for ad targeting - people don't start unliking things they actually like, just to avoid annoying marketing. The interest graph remains intact even when brands make poor marketing decisions.
- klochner 14y agoDo people associate liking things with "completing their profiles"? Maybe I've been on the other side for too long, but I equate liking a page with opting into their facebook marketing content, and I unlike if I want to opt out.
- MichaelGG 14y agoYes, that's how FB poses it, as part of your profile. For instance, "What music do you like?" You type in some groups, and that counts as liking them. Suddenly, you get to see news about each concert, blu-ray, etc. they're doing, right in your feed. Not a great experience. I'm not sure why anyone would assume a very casual social "hey I like X" is equivalent to "subscribe".
- fleitz 14y ago
- cmccabe 14y agoNo, you're paying $3 CPM to reach Facebook's audience. They own the platform. You're just visiting. And nobody rides free. The price for the users is to be spammed and data mined. The price for advertisers is to pay cash.
- loceng 14y agoIt was the brands who sent the fans there via multiple marketing channels (TV, their website, etc), who updated the content for fans to have, etc..
- cmccabe 14y agoSo what? Those other marketing channels, like TV, newspaper advertisements, and so on, aren't free. And neither is Facebook. I'm sure that Mark Cuban's hockey team drives a lot of viewers to watch TV. Does that mean Mark should get to advertise for free on television? That's not how the networks see it. [edit: this is a really bad example] It's funny that we've gone from being outraged about spam and all-pervasive advertising, to being outraged that spammers have to actually pay to send the stuff.
- corin_ 14y agoI think he would have less complaints if Facebook paid his team the amount of money TV networks pay for sports rights.
- cmccabe 14y agoThat's a pretty insightful comment. I think it really gets to the heart of the issue-- Mark brings a lot of value to the TV networks, but not that much to Facebook. And Facebook knows it.
- loceng 14y agoHow doesn't keeping fans on the Facebook website not compare equally to keeping fans watching a specific TV station? The value is there.