Tim Peterson says, “Facebook is returning its Marketing Partners (née Preferred Marketing Developers) program to its roots as a roster of advertising and marketing technology providers and putting some agencies that had been part of the program at a further remove. Facebook plans to eliminate the “media buying” speciality from its Marketing Partners program that grants a Good Housekeeping-style seal of approval to various companies that help brands buy ads and manage their accounts on Facebook and Instagram, the company announced on Monday. The elimination of the media buying badge,... [...]

Jessica Liu says, “Yesterday Facebook blogged “An Update on Metrics and Reporting” to inform marketers that several of their organic metrics were misreported including organic reach, time spent on Instant Articles, and follower count. This follows Facebook’s revelatory September announcement that their video metrics contained a discrepancy and were over-reported. The industry was outraged. But who’s really at fault here? Tina Moffett and I break it down like Judge Judy. For The Defense: Facebook How long did it take TV to standardize measurement? The social media industry... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “In a sort of course correction, Facebook made several announcements Wednesday pertaining to audience and ads measurement on the social network. The news includes several metrics corrections — though none likely to cause as much consternation as September’s revelation that Facebook had been overstating the “average duration of video viewed” due to a miscalculation — more third-party verification, a new blog to communicate ongoing metrics changes, and the formation of a new Measurement Council. “We want to reaffirm our commitment to the market and provide... [...]

Amanda Zantal-Wiener says, “Over the past couple of months, you may have heard some things about Facebook’s metrics. There was talk of numbers — lots of them. Things were overestimated. Others were underestimated. People were kind of upset. But mostly, they were confused. What the heck happened? How was Facebook going to respond? And at the end of the day, what did it mean for marketers? Breathe, and don’t panic — we’re here to answer all of that.But before we dive in, let’s make one thing clear — none of it is the end of the world. In fact, most... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “With more than 34,000 Messenger bots on the market since their April 2016 debut, Facebook is rolling out an analytics tool that will detail to Messenger bot makers how people are interacting with their bots and cross-reference those stats with people’s Facebook profile data, in hopes of improving people’s experiences with those bots. Developers, including brands and publishers, will be able to use the new branch of Facebook Analytics for Apps in the same way they use Facebook’s analytics platform to track how people are interacting with their websites and mobile... [...]

Andrew Waber says, “Some of the latest changes for Facebook’s Audience Network give it a legitimate claim of being a chief competitor to Google for both website publishers and advertisers. Early this year, mobile web inventory was added on top of in-app placements, and then more recently, Facebook announced the expansion of Audience Network to include non-Facebook users, along with a move into header bidding. With these developments at the forefront, you can more thoroughly evaluate the impact of Audience Network in comparison to existing Facebook and programmatic campaigns. Facebook is... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Facebook is making it easier than ever for brands to lure you into chatting with them. The social network rolled out a new type of ad on Tuesday that lets advertisers with or without Messenger bots solicit messages through sponsored News Feed posts. The posts look like any other ad on the site, but have a “send message” button in place of a link to an outside site. Another iteration of the format lets brands run ads within a particular open conversation on the Messenger platform in an attempt to reconnect with users with whom they’ve talked before. Facebook... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “Today Facebook officially made it possible for marketers to turn their Messenger bots into ad bots. After testing sponsored messages since April 2016, Facebook Messenger is opening up the messaging app’s inaugural ad format to all brands who use Messenger’s developer tools to manage their Messenger conversations. Facebook Messenger’s sponsored messages are pretty straightforward and don’t seem to stray from the version it had been testing. The ads can only be shown to people who “have an open, existing conversation with” a brand, according to Facebook. There... [...]

Lydia Belanger says, “Marketers can grumble all they want about non-loyal millennials, but that doesn’t change the reality that they’re going to need to adapt if they wish to capture this younger market. New data shows that 18-to-34-year-olds do in fact want to commit to specific products and companies. A recent survey by Facebook IQ of 14,700 U.S. adults and found that millennials are 1.75 times as likely as baby boomers to say that they’d like to be more loyal to brands. The survey examined sentiments and behavior related to five industries: auto insurance, airlines, hotels, grocery... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Last week, one of Facebook’s ad targeting options became a topic of controversy. It all started with an article bearing the headline, Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race. The article was published by ProPublica, which bills itself as “an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” The organization published the article after it showed how Facebook’s ethnic affinity targeting options could potentially be used by Facebook marketers in a discriminatory manner. Here’s what marketers... [...]