Insights, commentary and news

Facebook is in the news again – this time due to rumors that Facebook unfairly priced Facebook ads favoring one 2016 presidential candidate over another. On Tuesday, Andrew Bozworth, Facebook’s VP of AR and VR, took to Twitter (Twitter?!?) to dispel some myths about Facebook’s role in the 2016 presidential election. Bozworth (@boztank) tweeted, “After some discussion we've decided to share the CPM comparison on Trump campaign ads vs. Clinton campaign ads. This chart shows that during general election period, Trump campaign paid slightly higher CPM prices on most days rather than lower as has been reported.”

Swirling suspicion and rumors of which presidential candidates paid more for Facebook ads prompted this response, citing unfair private, unfair pricing advantages. Last October, Facebook announced that it would start sharing more information around political advertiser campaigns as it relates to ad content, investment levels and targeted audiences. While this helps create a more transparent political advertising climate, other advertisers will continue asking questions around the following transparency issues:

1. Fairness: Questions such as, “Is our brand paying more for media than our competitors?” are often raised by brand managers based on the opaque nature of the Facebook ad platform, pricing algorithms and the “Relevance Score.” Could Facebook’s private and proprietary ad algorithm be favoring certain brands over others based on volume agreements, spend commitments, or other reasons? Facebook does not release pricing or performance benchmarks that would help advertisers understand where they rank in comparison with other advertisers in similar categories, which draws suspicion.

2. Targeting: Facebook provides pre-set, predefined interests and interest categories to advertisers. Detail on how those interests are defined are not readily available. Despite Facebook’s denial, consumer accusations that keywords from private, in-person conversations held within range of mobile devices are used for ad targeting continue to proliferate.

3. Placements: Placement-level reporting is non-existent within Facebook’s self-service platform for advertisers using the Audience Network. This could be problematic for advertisers with sensitive preferences towards types of content or audiences. For comparison, DSPs allow transparency into sites where ads appeared, and the volume of impressions served on particular sites or publishers. 

4. Pricing: Facebook’s markup on Audience Network media is not disclosed to advertisers. Perhaps the most significant difference that a DSP or a programmatic buy can offer is complete transparency into placements and pricing – something lacking in the Facebook Audience Network environment. Programmatic buys allow advertisers to understand the markup collected by the DSP and the exact cost of any third-party data used, on top of the actual media cost set by the publisher. Bottom line – how much is Facebook profiting on each Audience Network impression, and could inventory on these same pages be purchased more efficiently via a programmatic solution? 

5. Metrics: Facebook came under fire in September of 2016 when it was reported that they inflated video view time metrics for advertisers for over two years. Advertisers rely on Facebook for all direct performance data, as opposed to a third-party ad server which could independently and objectively measure key metrics such as video completions or average video view time. Additionally, misleading Facebook metrics prompt skepticism among savvy marketers. A key example is how Facebook defines “video views.” Facebook classifies a “video view” as any impression which includes video content that auto-plays in a user’s News Feed (muted by default) for at least three seconds as he or she scrolls down the page. Furthermore, Facebook counts these passive, three-second plays as “engagements” within metrics reports.

As marketers, we’re constantly re-evaluating the best platforms to reach our audiences, but we need to balance the amount of transparency and control offered by the medium now more than ever. There are certainly cases where using Facebook Ads, Instagram and the Facebook Audience Network make sense – but we recommend using an unbiased source such as an advertising agency to help navigate the pros, cons and questions around transparency.