9 ms·

We were successfully running retargeting ads on Facebook by uploading our customers email addresses. We were getting lots of conversions cheaply. Initially CPM

We were successfully running retargeting ads on Facebook by uploading our customers email addresses. We were getting lots of conversions cheaply. Initially CPM was $1.70, then a few months later it was $4, now 6 months later it's $9. At this point it became unviable. I spoke to our account manager at Facebook and he confirmed my suspicions. Every time one of our customers converts though our ads, Facebook assigns a high value to that user, since that user purchased something through a FB ad. So now I have more competition to get in front of our existing customer from our competition who our customer is not interested in. FUCK THAT. Moral of the story DO NOT tell Facebook about conversions from your existing customers. Keep that info to yourself.

spacefight 12y ago
Maybe also don't leak your customers email addresses to FB at all.
- tonyedgecombe 12y ago
  Yes, if I was a customer I'd be a bit miffed if a supplier sent my email address to Facebook.
- nodata 12y ago
  yeah wtf is going on here: a company is bulk uploading all customer e-mail addresses to facebook?
  - blumkvist 12y ago
    To you and the others: yes you can. You can also upload phone #s. They are hashed.
    - robzyb 12y ago
      > They are hashed So what if they are hashed? Facebook has the solution to all the hashes.
      - cpach 12y ago
        One could give away a unique e-mail address to every web site. Quite a hassle though.
        13 12y ago
        I've been doing it for years without problem, it's a lot easier than you'd first think. Markov chain makes the leader of the email address, domain is selected from a random pool.
        cpach 12y ago
        Are those your own domains?
        13 12y ago
        For things I care about the domains are owned by me, for things I consider spammy I have a round robin of afraid.org aliases which are for all intents and purposes disposable. They are very effective for this sort of thing, but you would be wise to do your research into the history of the domain you're piggybacking to be sure it's not going to disappear.
        Joeboy 12y ago
        I have exim set up to accept all mail to my domain that starts with a particular prefix. So I sign up to websites as myprefix-sitename@mydomain.com. Setting it up was a bit of a fiddle because I suck at exim, but it's no ongoing hassle.
        spindritf 12y ago
        You set up a catch-all on your domain, and just make up whatever@domain.tld whenever you need an address. I have all my domains set up that way. Not even for unique addresses, just for convenience.
        SixSigma 12y ago
        if you use a gmail account, you can use a + after yourusername So cpach@gmail.com and cpach+hackernews@gmail.com would both end up in the same inbox, then you can use gmail filters to separate them
    - tomp 12y ago
      You're still letting FB know that its existing users are your customers, which breaches your customer's privacy. Imagine that Ashley Madison did that!
      - pluma 12y ago
        In case anybody else has no idea what Ashley Madison is: it's an online dating service that seems to be focussed on people who are already in a relationship and cheat on their partners. Or something like that. I agree that the privacy violation is bad as it is, but I don't see how this is a good example for why it's bad.
        tomp 12y ago
        Well... I imagine that you wouldn't want random advertisers and FB employees knowing that you're interested in cheating on your spouse.
    - mbesto 12y ago
      FYI - This is the privacy policy for it: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/customaudiences/tos.php https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/customaudiences/tos.php "Facebook’s custom audience feature enables you to create an audience using your data such as email addresses and phone numbers. When using Facebook’s custom audience feature, your data is locally hashed on your system before you upload and pass such data to Facebook to be used to create your custom audience (the “Hashed Data”)."
- netcan 12y ago
  Here is a catch 22. In a sufficiently competitive environment, "it's profitable to do X" quickly becomes "It's essential to do X." Here is a contrived example that doesn't reflect reality: There are 10 banks in a market. The banks have a range of new online services. Adoption of as many of these services as possible is the key to success. A viable strategy is to retarget customers (segmented by income/family status and other things that make certain services relevant) and tell them about various services. This increases the adoption of value add services substantially. If one bank takes a moral stance, they either need to live with lower adoption of their services or spend more via less effective advertising channels. If Facebook advertising is good enough, that one bank would go out of business, have its management replaced by shareholders or get bought out by one of the others. This probably doesn't apply to banks, but there are businesses where effective online advertising is the difference between success and failure. All the tourist/hotel/flight booking sites, for example.
  - mseebach 12y ago
    In that scenario, not violating your users' privacy would become a differentiator for your product, something you could market. Ever noticed how much advertising in highly competitive businesses seem to hinge on ever more strained explanations of how one product is different from the other? Except, of course (and this is probably the ugly truth) - as long as Facebook doesn't do creepy/embarrassing things or otherwise actively annoy their customers, the vast, vast majority of customers just doesn't care. And then there isn't really a problem.
    - theorique 12y ago
      Your second paragraph explains it. As long as companies are sufficiently non-creepy in their privacy invasion (or at least APPEAR to be such), then the only people who will care are cypherpunks and privacy nerds, who don't form a large part of the market. The "masses" usually go for the latest shiny toy.
    - forgottenpass 12y ago
      Privacy is very much a market for lemons. Lets take two scenarios and see which is more profitable. 1. Respect privacy. 2. Carefully mislead the customer to believe the company respects user privacy in a way their fuzzy morals tell them isn't a "lie," bury the truth in the fine print. Lose the handful of customers both technically savvy, principled and capable enough to not use the product while profiting from abusing the privacy of their users.
- coenhyde 12y ago
  This practice is very common. I'm not saying I agree with it but you should expect that every service you signup with to do this. As the company retargeting you do not know anything extra about your customers. The retargeting audience is a black box. It's Facebook you have to worry about. My suggestion is to have a different email for Facebook than everything else.
  - spacefight 12y ago
    It's also companies leaking your address to any third party like crazy we have to worry. Seriously, WTF.
danieltillett 12y ago
How were you telling Facebook about your conversions?
- fabiandesimone 12y ago
  Facebook Conversion Pixel
  - danieltillett 12y ago
    Thanks for this. I have to say that it is rather short sighted for Facebook to be using this data to cut the legs off their advertisers. This sort of activity is really going to poison their platform.
    - netcan 12y ago
      It's not malicious. FB have been trying everything frantically to make their super-complicated ad platform work since the IPO. They use all sorts of (rapidly changing) black boxes to figure out what ads to show to who. Second order effects spring up. They are trying to profile users in various ways so that ads with a particular goal (clicking off-page ads, interacting with advertiser content, "conversions," etc.) are shown to users with a propensity to do those things. This increases competitiveness for customers with a propensity to do in demand things.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hagbardgroup 12y ago
Good call.

spacefight 12y ago

Maybe also don't leak your customers email addresses to FB at all.

tonyedgecombe 12y ago
Yes, if I was a customer I'd be a bit miffed if a supplier sent my email address to Facebook.
nodata 12y ago
yeah wtf is going on here: a company is bulk uploading all customer e-mail addresses to facebook?
- blumkvist 12y ago
  To you and the others: yes you can. You can also upload phone #s. They are hashed.
  - robzyb 12y ago
    > They are hashed So what if they are hashed? Facebook has the solution to all the hashes.
    - cpach 12y ago
      One could give away a unique e-mail address to every web site. Quite a hassle though.
      - 13 12y ago
        I've been doing it for years without problem, it's a lot easier than you'd first think. Markov chain makes the leader of the email address, domain is selected from a random pool.
        cpach 12y ago
        Are those your own domains?
        13 12y ago
        For things I care about the domains are owned by me, for things I consider spammy I have a round robin of afraid.org aliases which are for all intents and purposes disposable. They are very effective for this sort of thing, but you would be wise to do your research into the history of the domain you're piggybacking to be sure it's not going to disappear.
      - Joeboy 12y ago
        I have exim set up to accept all mail to my domain that starts with a particular prefix. So I sign up to websites as myprefix-sitename@mydomain.com. Setting it up was a bit of a fiddle because I suck at exim, but it's no ongoing hassle.
      - spindritf 12y ago
        You set up a catch-all on your domain, and just make up whatever@domain.tld whenever you need an address. I have all my domains set up that way. Not even for unique addresses, just for convenience.
      - SixSigma 12y ago
        if you use a gmail account, you can use a + after yourusername So cpach@gmail.com and cpach+hackernews@gmail.com would both end up in the same inbox, then you can use gmail filters to separate them
  - tomp 12y ago
    You're still letting FB know that its existing users are your customers, which breaches your customer's privacy. Imagine that Ashley Madison did that!
    - pluma 12y ago
      In case anybody else has no idea what Ashley Madison is: it's an online dating service that seems to be focussed on people who are already in a relationship and cheat on their partners. Or something like that. I agree that the privacy violation is bad as it is, but I don't see how this is a good example for why it's bad.
      - tomp 12y ago
        Well... I imagine that you wouldn't want random advertisers and FB employees knowing that you're interested in cheating on your spouse.
  - mbesto 12y ago
    FYI - This is the privacy policy for it: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/customaudiences/tos.php https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/customaudiences/tos.php "Facebook’s custom audience feature enables you to create an audience using your data such as email addresses and phone numbers. When using Facebook’s custom audience feature, your data is locally hashed on your system before you upload and pass such data to Facebook to be used to create your custom audience (the “Hashed Data”)."
netcan 12y ago
Here is a catch 22. In a sufficiently competitive environment, "it's profitable to do X" quickly becomes "It's essential to do X." Here is a contrived example that doesn't reflect reality: There are 10 banks in a market. The banks have a range of new online services. Adoption of as many of these services as possible is the key to success. A viable strategy is to retarget customers (segmented by income/family status and other things that make certain services relevant) and tell them about various services. This increases the adoption of value add services substantially. If one bank takes a moral stance, they either need to live with lower adoption of their services or spend more via less effective advertising channels. If Facebook advertising is good enough, that one bank would go out of business, have its management replaced by shareholders or get bought out by one of the others. This probably doesn't apply to banks, but there are businesses where effective online advertising is the difference between success and failure. All the tourist/hotel/flight booking sites, for example.
- mseebach 12y ago
  In that scenario, not violating your users' privacy would become a differentiator for your product, something you could market. Ever noticed how much advertising in highly competitive businesses seem to hinge on ever more strained explanations of how one product is different from the other? Except, of course (and this is probably the ugly truth) - as long as Facebook doesn't do creepy/embarrassing things or otherwise actively annoy their customers, the vast, vast majority of customers just doesn't care. And then there isn't really a problem.
  - theorique 12y ago
    Your second paragraph explains it. As long as companies are sufficiently non-creepy in their privacy invasion (or at least APPEAR to be such), then the only people who will care are cypherpunks and privacy nerds, who don't form a large part of the market. The "masses" usually go for the latest shiny toy.
  - forgottenpass 12y ago
    Privacy is very much a market for lemons. Lets take two scenarios and see which is more profitable. 1. Respect privacy. 2. Carefully mislead the customer to believe the company respects user privacy in a way their fuzzy morals tell them isn't a "lie," bury the truth in the fine print. Lose the handful of customers both technically savvy, principled and capable enough to not use the product while profiting from abusing the privacy of their users.
coenhyde 12y ago
This practice is very common. I'm not saying I agree with it but you should expect that every service you signup with to do this. As the company retargeting you do not know anything extra about your customers. The retargeting audience is a black box. It's Facebook you have to worry about. My suggestion is to have a different email for Facebook than everything else.
- spacefight 12y ago
  It's also companies leaking your address to any third party like crazy we have to worry. Seriously, WTF.

danieltillett 12y ago

How were you telling Facebook about your conversions?

fabiandesimone 12y ago
Facebook Conversion Pixel
- danieltillett 12y ago
  Thanks for this. I have to say that it is rather short sighted for Facebook to be using this data to cut the legs off their advertisers. This sort of activity is really going to poison their platform.
  - netcan 12y ago
    It's not malicious. FB have been trying everything frantically to make their super-complicated ad platform work since the IPO. They use all sorts of (rapidly changing) black boxes to figure out what ads to show to who. Second order effects spring up. They are trying to profile users in various ways so that ads with a particular goal (clicking off-page ads, interacting with advertiser content, "conversions," etc.) are shown to users with a propensity to do those things. This increases competitiveness for customers with a propensity to do in demand things.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hagbardgroup 12y ago

Good call.