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Facebook reported fake numbers to advertisers

(news.yahoo.com)
618 points elorant | 10 comments | 19 Feb 21 14:34 UTC | HN request time: 1.068s | source | bottom
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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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1. cwkoss ◴[19 Feb 21 18:33 UTC] No.26196285[source]▶
What percentage of small shopify stores' whole business is dropshipping cheap Chinese garbage at huge mark ups?
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2. pie420 ◴[19 Feb 21 18:37 UTC] No.26196335[source]▶
105%
3. notahacker ◴[19 Feb 21 19:15 UTC] No.26196798[source]▶
probably not higher than Amazon marketplace's...
4. bluGill ◴[19 Feb 21 19:36 UTC] No.26197075[source]▶
Less than you might think because of all the small stores where the whole model is to offer something, collect money, and not ship at all.

I don't buy from shopify or facebook anymore, and probably won't even if they clean up their act.

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5. stickfigure ◴[19 Feb 21 19:36 UTC] No.26197085[source]▶
Probably not as large as you think? Print-on-demand is huge, and almost everyone prints domestically.
6. Spivak ◴[19 Feb 21 22:04 UTC] No.26198631[source]▶
That’s the whole business of most stores. Trying to pin that on the web hosting platform seems odd. Being on Shopify is basically zero signal as to whether the product is any good.
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7. tomnipotent ◴[19 Feb 21 22:39 UTC] No.26198976[source]▶
> That’s the whole business of most stores

Most stores buy and hold inventory, taking on the risk of not selling that inventory. Dropshippers send the order to someone else to fulfil, and are essentially glorified lead generators.

8. cwkoss ◴[19 Feb 21 23:01 UTC] No.26199179[source]▶
I don't consider the majority of drop-shippers to be economically productive businesses: they are charging a premium because their customers don't know that they can buy the exact same SKUs from AliExpress. Customers of these business often pay 2-5x mark up on items based on marketing and lack of information, because these business are effectively just pure marketing plays.

There are certainly good small businesses, both on Shopify and elsewhere, and some would be hurt to some small degree by this change. I'm simply arguing that the majority of business which would go broke without the use of the FB ad system tracking panopticon are not the sort of small business which are societally useful or that we should mourn their loss.

"Small businesses going bankrupt" typically is thought of a negative thing, but there are flavors of small businesses where it is really a net societal good.

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9. Alupis ◴[20 Feb 21 01:03 UTC] No.26200290{3}[source]▶
> I don't consider the majority of drop-shippers to be economically productive businesses: they are charging a premium because their customers don't know that they can buy the exact same SKUs from AliExpress.

That's certainly selling drop-shippers short.

They provide products, at prices people are willing to pay for convenience, trustability, etc. They handle complaints, shoulder the risk of returns and/or damaged in shipment items, pay for their own advertising/marketing and more.

Many Tier-1 distributors enjoy their relationship with drop-shippers... and many customers enjoy that very same relationship too.

10. mtnGoat ◴[20 Feb 21 01:58 UTC] No.26200731[source]▶
This is a real problem! I think Shopify is starting to keep rolling reserves to combat it too. So they are switching to other payment methods.