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This article (video) is pointing to fundamental flaws in FB's advertising offerings. I don't think that any amount of "social media marketing" expertise will c

This article (video) is pointing to fundamental flaws in FB's advertising offerings. I don't think that any amount of "social media marketing" expertise will compensate for the fact that a large proportion of the ad spend on those offerings may likely be wasted on what is effectively fraud. Even if you optimize for better performance, there will still be inordinate waste to fraud. Beyond that, I think a lot of people have been jaded by the multitudes claiming that they can help businesses with social media. If you are stating that there is some fraction of 1% who do actually grasp some deep, esoteric knowledge required to succeed with Facebook campaigns (or with other channels like Google), then OK. But, I would think that to be a massive problem for Facebook, Google, etc. That is, the overwhelming majority of their customers (lacking the required knowledge) would eventually realize that the ROI just isn't there for them. Perhaps that will yet happen with some of these channels. If so, perhaps FB will be among the first to implode, as there are many who don't find the same abysmal metrics with Google, et. al. as they do on FB. So, even from a relative perspective, it still seems that FB is deeply flawed.

mschaecher 13y ago
BS - I've watched both videos twice and more sophisticated targeting solves 90% of their "problems." How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" and "large portion of ad spend...likely wasted...on what is effectively fraud." I've managed many millions across a handful of companies. Has their been issues? Yes, just like every other channel. You're spot on about being jaded though. Wading through the masses of BS is a huge pain. 75% of the people probably give up, 20% outsourced to varying results, 5% nail it in-house or via finding the right partner. But that 5%-15% of potential advertisers that lock it down? That's 80% of the ad spend right there. One Expedia is worth 100,000 small businesses to Google. Google, Facebook, et al have all tried to simplify their ad products to capture more potential advertisers at different levels. But in doing so they arrive at a Catch 22 though... To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs. So what are they supposed to do?
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Regarding your question about my statement that a "large portion of ad spend is likely wasted on what is effectively fraud." Not sure what you want me to say here. I don't believe the author's experience is isolated, nor is that of others who have demonstrated/reported the same. Your suggestion that they should use more "sophisticated targeting" to circumvent fraud is odd. Targeting should be for optimization, not fraud avoidance. How about instead FB fixes the fraud problem? In any case, by your own admission, most people don't possess this sophistication anyway, so it follows that they would likely be significantly affected by this fraud problem. Hence, you haven't refuted my statement, but supported it. >How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" Really? OK. Well, personally, I have only my own company's test cases. But, I can read and I don't think it's a coincidence that my experience corroborates that of many others. I'm actually also paraphrasing you (in part) when I say it's fundamentally flawed. I think it's a pretty big problem if only you and your cousin Bob, along with two other people who live on a mountain somewhere possess the esoteric knowledge required to create a successful campaign. And, now you've explicitly stated some of the flaw, with this: "To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs" You don't see a very serious problem there? In general, what you're saying throughout your post just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You gloss over fraud and lay out all of these problems with FB advertising, then you conclude that it's not fundamentally flawed. Instead, the problem is with the huge percentage of people who simply don't know how to use it. For what other product would this premise lead to this conclusion?
  - blumkvist 13y ago
    And what you are saying doesn't make sense to me. You want to achieve meaningful results when competing with people who are vastly more prepared to you. Why do you feel entitled to making facebook work? The truth is you (and majority of the people who posted here) have spent negligeble amounts of money testing and have read very little on the subject and even less time on putting down a strategy. I have a newsflash for you - marketing is hard and you are not entitled to results, just because you throw $50 on facebook ads.
prostoalex 13y ago
It's not that fundamental. Buying Facebook likes for a Facebook page is a subset of ads. You're definitely driven towards it in Facebook UI, but if you're Amazon or NetFlix or Expedia or whoever buys billions of ads nowadays, you still buy clicks to your site and bid on CPC basis. Anecdotal evidence (visiting facebook.com on the Web, seeing 7 ads on the right-hand side) suggests very few businesses actually pay for likes on pages. My current advertisers are tdameritrade.com, amazon.com, fijiairways.com, digitalsherpa.com, getdrip.com, att.com, tahoeaccommodations.com, none of them having a Like button underneath the ad.
- deleted 13y ago
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mschaecher 13y ago

BS - I've watched both videos twice and more sophisticated targeting solves 90% of their "problems." How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" and "large portion of ad spend...likely wasted...on what is effectively fraud." I've managed many millions across a handful of companies. Has their been issues? Yes, just like every other channel. You're spot on about being jaded though. Wading through the masses of BS is a huge pain. 75% of the people probably give up, 20% outsourced to varying results, 5% nail it in-house or via finding the right partner. But that 5%-15% of potential advertisers that lock it down? That's 80% of the ad spend right there. One Expedia is worth 100,000 small businesses to Google. Google, Facebook, et al have all tried to simplify their ad products to capture more potential advertisers at different levels. But in doing so they arrive at a Catch 22 though... To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs. So what are they supposed to do?

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Regarding your question about my statement that a "large portion of ad spend is likely wasted on what is effectively fraud." Not sure what you want me to say here. I don't believe the author's experience is isolated, nor is that of others who have demonstrated/reported the same. Your suggestion that they should use more "sophisticated targeting" to circumvent fraud is odd. Targeting should be for optimization, not fraud avoidance. How about instead FB fixes the fraud problem? In any case, by your own admission, most people don't possess this sophistication anyway, so it follows that they would likely be significantly affected by this fraud problem. Hence, you haven't refuted my statement, but supported it. >How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" Really? OK. Well, personally, I have only my own company's test cases. But, I can read and I don't think it's a coincidence that my experience corroborates that of many others. I'm actually also paraphrasing you (in part) when I say it's fundamentally flawed. I think it's a pretty big problem if only you and your cousin Bob, along with two other people who live on a mountain somewhere possess the esoteric knowledge required to create a successful campaign. And, now you've explicitly stated some of the flaw, with this: "To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs" You don't see a very serious problem there? In general, what you're saying throughout your post just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You gloss over fraud and lay out all of these problems with FB advertising, then you conclude that it's not fundamentally flawed. Instead, the problem is with the huge percentage of people who simply don't know how to use it. For what other product would this premise lead to this conclusion?
- blumkvist 13y ago
  And what you are saying doesn't make sense to me. You want to achieve meaningful results when competing with people who are vastly more prepared to you. Why do you feel entitled to making facebook work? The truth is you (and majority of the people who posted here) have spent negligeble amounts of money testing and have read very little on the subject and even less time on putting down a strategy. I have a newsflash for you - marketing is hard and you are not entitled to results, just because you throw $50 on facebook ads.

prostoalex 13y ago

It's not that fundamental. Buying Facebook likes for a Facebook page is a subset of ads. You're definitely driven towards it in Facebook UI, but if you're Amazon or NetFlix or Expedia or whoever buys billions of ads nowadays, you still buy clicks to your site and bid on CPC basis. Anecdotal evidence (visiting facebook.com on the Web, seeing 7 ads on the right-hand side) suggests very few businesses actually pay for likes on pages. My current advertisers are tdameritrade.com, amazon.com, fijiairways.com, digitalsherpa.com, getdrip.com, att.com, tahoeaccommodations.com, none of them having a Like button underneath the ad.

deleted 13y ago
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