Facebook Pushes Advertisers to Look Beyond Views and Likes
September 27 2016 - 7:10PM
Dow Jones News
By Mike Shields
Speaking to advertising executives on Tuesday, Facebook Inc.
executives downplayed controversy over the company's miscalculation
of a video metric and called for ad buyers to focus on metrics tied
to business outcomes.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the social
network had been overestimating average time spent viewing videos
by up to 80% for two years before fixing the mistake, because it
wasn't factoring in videos viewed for less than three seconds.
Facebook has apologized for the mistake. At a press conference
timed for Advertising Week in New York, executives said advertisers
care more about how well Facebook ads impact their business than
what can and can't be counted for each individual ad campaign.
Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president of global marketing
solutions, said that over the past several days, she's talked to
many Facebook ad partners about the issue.
"Universally, I've heard that no one has actually utilized that
metric," she said. "It did not impact (return on investment) and
did not impact billing."
Ms. Everson emphasized that the video duration number was one of
14 different metrics available to advertisers. And while Facebook
continues to allow advertisers to employ more data from third-party
research firms, such as comScore, the company has no plans to
change how it bills video advertisers, she said.
The company wants to push the ad buying community to deemphasize
measures like impressions, likes and clicks and focus on "metrics
that actually matter to driving business outcomes," she said.
"There is very universal agreement that the industry needs to
evolve to metrics that actually matter."
Meanwhile, the group of digital media companies that have spent
the past year or so building large video audiences on Facebook in
the hopes they will soon be able to make money off that traffic
through ads will be left wanting. Ms. Sandberg said right now the
company is focused on ramping up its consumer video audience, not
its video ad business.
"Monetization for video is not the biggest focus for now," said
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
When asked about Snapchat's recent remarks about how important
sound is to video ads, Ms. Everson said that, on average, 50% of
videos on Facebook--including both content and ads--are watched
with sound on. Facebook is doing a small test of videos that start
with the sound on in Australia.
Write to Mike Shields at mike.shields@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 27, 2016 18:55 ET (22:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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