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Facebook reported fake numbers to advertisers

(news.yahoo.com)
618 points elorant | 4 comments | 19 Feb 21 14:34 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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sputr ◴[19 Feb 21 15:18 UTC] No.26194057[source]▶
I keep warning small time (ie most) FB page owners who advertise on FB to be very very careful as they are being subjected to a beefed up version of the psychological manipulation that regular users face as they, not the regular users, are the main customers.

Facebooks corporate incentive is to get you to FEEL like your getting good value out of advertising on Facebook and to get you addicted to doing it.

Not to actually deliver results.

So don't trust any metric they show you, because even if its not a total fabrication it's still presented in a way to deceive you to think its better than it is.

Always monitor your ROI and always calculate it using your truly end goal (sales, or in the case of civil society some sort engagement off Facebook that's tightly bound to you mission). Likes, shares, comments and reach should NEVER be the goal. Even if FBs interface is trying to convince you otherwise.

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spideymans ◴[19 Feb 21 15:54 UTC] No.26194413[source]▶
>Facebooks corporate incentive is to get you to FEEL like your getting good value out of advertising on Facebook and to get you addicted to doing it.

Even more reason for us to be doubtful about FB's claims that small businesses would be decimated without FB's invasive tracking.

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cm2012 ◴[19 Feb 21 16:22 UTC] No.26194708[source]▶
If FB was actually completely forbidden from tracking, I'd estimate 85% of small shopify stores would die with it. The winners would be giant marketplaces like Amazon, who would be the only reliable sources left of customer acquisition.
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iamacyborg ◴[19 Feb 21 16:27 UTC] No.26194771[source]▶
> I'd estimate 85% of small shopify stores would die with it

And nothing of value was lost.

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ahoka ◴[19 Feb 21 16:36 UTC] No.26194867[source]▶
Most of those are probably just drop shipping with no real economical value.
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iamacyborg ◴[19 Feb 21 16:50 UTC] No.26195008[source]▶
Except for Shopify.

I wonder what the ecological impact of all these dropshippers is.

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rtkwe ◴[19 Feb 21 17:02 UTC] No.26195152[source]▶
Isn't it roughly the same as any other online shopping? The main difference is it's not getting warehoused in the US first but most of the products will flow through the same shipping channels.
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1. iamacyborg ◴[19 Feb 21 17:27 UTC] No.26195453[source]▶
My assumption is that a traditional approach where a retailer orders thousands of units at once has a lower ecological impact than shipping items out on a purchase-by-purchase basis. I could definitely be wrong though.
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2. rightbyte ◴[19 Feb 21 18:37 UTC] No.26196336[source]▶
You are probably not wrong. In my experience online retail ofent package stuff in the most ridiculously sized containers too. Trucks driving around with air.
3. bluGill ◴[19 Feb 21 19:32 UTC] No.26197020[source]▶
I doubt it. Everyone driving to the local retailer uses a lot of fuel. The truck uses more fuel than any two cars (this varies, but we can assume one is a SUV so close enough) for any distance, but the distance is overall much less because each car is going to the store, while the truck only needs to get from one house to the next, something shipping companies optimize. thus the amount of fuel assigned to any one package is less for the truck.
4. rtkwe ◴[19 Feb 21 21:13 UTC] No.26198095[source]▶
Depends a lot on the shipping method used between the dropshipper and retail right? If the DS store is using boats for their packages they're probably about the same as that's at best what the retail group is using.