WHAT’S A FEW DECIMAL POINTS: Marketers and ad agencies are learning that their campaigns on Facebook may not have been nearly as effective as they thought. For two years, Facebook overestimated the average amount of time people spent watching video content on its platform. The social media giant disclosed in its online advertiser help center that the key metric was accidentally artificially inflated by only including videos viewed for more than three seconds. Facebook told ad buying agency Publicis Media that it likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by a whopping 60% to 80%, according to a letter Publicis sent to clients, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The miscalculation means marketers may have misjudged the performance of their video ads as well as decisions to move budgets into Facebook, while publishers who post videos on the platform are also affected. Facebook’s solution? A new name for a new metric for what was meant to be measured in the first place. Maybe it’s time for the internet’s so-called walled gardens to finally allow true third-party verification of their data.
FACT FINDING: A report this summer from the Association of National Advertisers laid out, in breathtaking detail, how ad agencies were allegedly taking marketers for a ride through nontransparent business practices like accepting rebates. But the ANA report didn’t name names. Now, a few months on, a host of big marketers are auditing their agencies or trying to tighten their contract language, CMO Today reports. The long list of companies digging into these matters includes General Electric, Sears, Nationwide Mutual Insurance, AT&T, Allstate and many more. The breadth and scope of these audits shows how marketers are no longer taking for granted that their agencies always have their best interests at heart. Years of consolidation and the emergence of digital ad platforms have made the business of buying ads more opaque, and marketers are as skeptical as ever that they are getting a fair deal.
Read the full Wall Street Journal:CMO Today article here.