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Facebook Click Fraud Enraging Advertisers

16 points by malte 17y ago

pj 17y ago
Once again, history repeats itself. Facebook users fell for it. Facebook advertisers fell for it. Facebook investors fell for it... It's a terrible situation for everyone involved. It's the great lie of the internet. MySpace laid off 30%. Seriously, why does anyone think Facebook is immune? It doesn't work people. It just doesn't work.
- zaidf 17y ago
  What doesn't work?
  - aristus 17y ago
    Having infrastructure costs similar to running a search engine, but a revenue model that is at best 1/10th as efficient as search keyword advertising. You can demo-target display ads all you want, but the facts remain: search engine users are searching for something specific while social network users are just dicking around. Facebook's current advertising model is essentially the same as Yahoo's display ads plus some demo-target frosting. Note that a) Yahoo has additional revenue streams and b) isn't doing that well.
    - zaidf 17y ago
      It is one thing to say facebook's current advertising isn't working. It is another to use that fact to reach a conclusion like "It's the great lie of the internet." I use facebook. And clock over 10 hours a day with a fb window open. According to the OP, I've bought into some type of a lie. I'm wondering what that is. Re: revenue...give them time. I think they'll figure out. It usually takes web companies with explosive growth some time to pin down their source of $. And offering myspace's poor management as evidence of why facebook is bad makes zero sense. I think facebook's paypal-killer will be its source of revenue in future.
      - aristus 17y ago
        "great lie" was pj's phrase, not mine, but I took that to mean "perennial tar-pit". FB might succeed but a long string of similar social media businesses have failed to pin down the whole revenue/cost thing. It'll have to be something very different from display ads.
jotto 17y ago
Is it possible that it's not fraud, but instead users accidentally clicking advertisements (which then register on facebook's end) but the user quickly realized their mistake and closes the browser (so it doesn't get registered on the owner's end)?
- il 17y ago
  That would mean 20-50% of Facebook users have ninja-like reflexes that let them close a browser within milliseconds of clicking an ad, before a redirect is recorded. Unlikely.
  - TrevorJ 17y ago
    You don't develop those skills unless you have been rickrolled at least 200 times. Joking aside, you are right. It is unlikely that this is anything but a flaw on Facebook's end.
  - jotto 17y ago
    I don't think it's as unlikely as you suggest. Click an advertisement on Facebook, you'll see it redirected as Facebook registers it in a few milliseconds, but you'll have several seconds before the actual targeted site loads and can easily close it.
    - il 17y ago
      The tracking on the advertiser's server also takes a few milliseconds before you're redirected to the landing page.
vaksel 17y ago
Facebook advertising just sucks period, users just don't pay attention to it
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
omarchowdhury 17y ago
As an advertiser on Facebook, I can attest to the fact that Facebook's recent increase in click fraud has become UNBEARABLE. What started with 1-2% of clicks being fraudulent, has progressed to some ad campaigns recieving 10 real clicks to 90 fake clicks. And this is over 10,000s of clicks. FUCK Facebook because they do nothing about it, simply providing a boilerplate email. EVEN an IP exclusion tool would help, but Facebook doesn't have that. But what the fuck do you expect? They treat their customers like shit. They have "Ad reps" on their platform who serve only one purpose: to increase your daily budget on their platform. Ask them anything else and they are totally fucking clueless. Also, apologies for the recurring vulgarity but this has been an issue for me for the past month. It's money.
- aristus 17y ago
  It takes time to turn a big boat. I think it's naive of them to not have anticipated this kind of problem. It would also be naive of us to expect an "Ad Rep" who was probably a PolySci student 2 months ago to be able to fix it. If it's really such an UNBEARABLE problem you don't have to bear it. Suspend your ads and come back when it's fixed.
  - TrevorJ 17y ago
    No. Sorry, just no. If you buy a Mercedes and they deliver a Yugo, you've been defrauded. Fine, maybe they can't get you the Mercedes back right away but they sure as heck can refund your money. Facebook appears to not even be talking to these customers beyond a form letter. That's just plain wrong. Yes, problems can take time to fix but working with the customers you have just screwed over to compensate them can be done RIGHT AWAY. Apparently they aren't doing this, and that is the problem.
    - aristus 17y ago
      Bad customer service, yep. It's ok to be angry, but that doesn't invalidate my point: click fraud often takes companies by surprise (though it shouldn't) and that it will take a non-trivial amount of time to fix (I'll guesstimate 3 months once it gets serious attention from management) but it will be fixed. It's like an ant infestation. In the meantime given the bad customer service and probable time frame, the best thing to do is suspend your ads. FB will pay a LOT more attention to that than how many customers call up to verbally abuse their salespeople or vent on forums.

16 points by malte 17y ago

pj 17y ago

Once again, history repeats itself. Facebook users fell for it. Facebook advertisers fell for it. Facebook investors fell for it... It's a terrible situation for everyone involved. It's the great lie of the internet. MySpace laid off 30%. Seriously, why does anyone think Facebook is immune? It doesn't work people. It just doesn't work.

zaidf 17y ago
What doesn't work?
- aristus 17y ago
  Having infrastructure costs similar to running a search engine, but a revenue model that is at best 1/10th as efficient as search keyword advertising. You can demo-target display ads all you want, but the facts remain: search engine users are searching for something specific while social network users are just dicking around. Facebook's current advertising model is essentially the same as Yahoo's display ads plus some demo-target frosting. Note that a) Yahoo has additional revenue streams and b) isn't doing that well.
  - zaidf 17y ago
    It is one thing to say facebook's current advertising isn't working. It is another to use that fact to reach a conclusion like "It's the great lie of the internet." I use facebook. And clock over 10 hours a day with a fb window open. According to the OP, I've bought into some type of a lie. I'm wondering what that is. Re: revenue...give them time. I think they'll figure out. It usually takes web companies with explosive growth some time to pin down their source of $. And offering myspace's poor management as evidence of why facebook is bad makes zero sense. I think facebook's paypal-killer will be its source of revenue in future.
    - aristus 17y ago
      "great lie" was pj's phrase, not mine, but I took that to mean "perennial tar-pit". FB might succeed but a long string of similar social media businesses have failed to pin down the whole revenue/cost thing. It'll have to be something very different from display ads.

jotto 17y ago

Is it possible that it's not fraud, but instead users accidentally clicking advertisements (which then register on facebook's end) but the user quickly realized their mistake and closes the browser (so it doesn't get registered on the owner's end)?

il 17y ago
That would mean 20-50% of Facebook users have ninja-like reflexes that let them close a browser within milliseconds of clicking an ad, before a redirect is recorded. Unlikely.
- TrevorJ 17y ago
  You don't develop those skills unless you have been rickrolled at least 200 times. Joking aside, you are right. It is unlikely that this is anything but a flaw on Facebook's end.
- jotto 17y ago
  I don't think it's as unlikely as you suggest. Click an advertisement on Facebook, you'll see it redirected as Facebook registers it in a few milliseconds, but you'll have several seconds before the actual targeted site loads and can easily close it.
  - il 17y ago
    The tracking on the advertiser's server also takes a few milliseconds before you're redirected to the landing page.

vaksel 17y ago

Facebook advertising just sucks period, users just don't pay attention to it

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

omarchowdhury 17y ago

As an advertiser on Facebook, I can attest to the fact that Facebook's recent increase in click fraud has become UNBEARABLE. What started with 1-2% of clicks being fraudulent, has progressed to some ad campaigns recieving 10 real clicks to 90 fake clicks. And this is over 10,000s of clicks. FUCK Facebook because they do nothing about it, simply providing a boilerplate email. EVEN an IP exclusion tool would help, but Facebook doesn't have that. But what the fuck do you expect? They treat their customers like shit. They have "Ad reps" on their platform who serve only one purpose: to increase your daily budget on their platform. Ask them anything else and they are totally fucking clueless. Also, apologies for the recurring vulgarity but this has been an issue for me for the past month. It's money.

aristus 17y ago
It takes time to turn a big boat. I think it's naive of them to not have anticipated this kind of problem. It would also be naive of us to expect an "Ad Rep" who was probably a PolySci student 2 months ago to be able to fix it. If it's really such an UNBEARABLE problem you don't have to bear it. Suspend your ads and come back when it's fixed.
- TrevorJ 17y ago
  No. Sorry, just no. If you buy a Mercedes and they deliver a Yugo, you've been defrauded. Fine, maybe they can't get you the Mercedes back right away but they sure as heck can refund your money. Facebook appears to not even be talking to these customers beyond a form letter. That's just plain wrong. Yes, problems can take time to fix but working with the customers you have just screwed over to compensate them can be done RIGHT AWAY. Apparently they aren't doing this, and that is the problem.
  - aristus 17y ago
    Bad customer service, yep. It's ok to be angry, but that doesn't invalidate my point: click fraud often takes companies by surprise (though it shouldn't) and that it will take a non-trivial amount of time to fix (I'll guesstimate 3 months once it gets serious attention from management) but it will be fixed. It's like an ant infestation. In the meantime given the bad customer service and probable time frame, the best thing to do is suspend your ads. FB will pay a LOT more attention to that than how many customers call up to verbally abuse their salespeople or vent on forums.