Tim Peterson says, “Facebook’s string of measurement errors disclosed since September has some marketers shook up, even if those marketers weren’t directly affected by the social network’s messed-up math.

Soon after Facebook announced in November that it had been overstating Page posts’ organic reach, digital agency Blitz was pitching a client on a Facebook campaign idea to make people more aware of the brand. That meant being able to measure how many people were exposed to the campaign, including those who organically saw the ad because a friend shared it or commented on it, even though those impressions were free. This brand had never been exposed to erroneous organic reach measurements by Facebook, according to Blitz’s director of social, Kevin Wright, but it was worried anyway.

The brand’s team “came back and said, ‘Hey, I’m very concerned. Should we continue to spend these recommended dollars on Facebook with the awareness objective given reach may be off?’” said Wright. “That was definitely a hurdle.”

The aftershocks of Facebook’s measurement errors continue to ripple across the advertising industry. While Facebook has emphasized that the flawed figures — such as average watch time, organic reach and video completion rates — did not affect how much money it charged advertisers for their campaigns, that doesn’t mean advertisers and their agencies haven’t been affected”.

How Facebook’s measurement errors have eroded marketers’ trust

Marketing Land

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