Music Startup Says 80 Percent of Facebook Ad Clicks are Bots...
 

www dot digitalmusicnews dot com/permalink/2012/120730facebook

Hey everyone, we're going to be deleting our Facebook page in the next couple of weeks, but we wanted to explain why before we do. A couple months ago, when we were preparing to launch the new Limited Run, we started to experiment with Facebook ads. Unfortunately, while testing their ad system, we noticed some very strange things. Facebook was charging us for clicks, yet we could only verify about 20% of them actually showing up on our site. At first, we thought it was our analytics service. We tried signing up for a handful of other big name companies, and still, we couldn't verify more than 15-20% of clicks. So we did what any good developers would do. We built our own analytic software. Here's what we found: on about 80% of the clicks Facebook was charging us for, JavaScript wasn't on. And if the person clicking the ad doesn't have JavaScript, it's very difficult for an analytics service to verify the click. What's important here is that in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have JavaScript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from Facebook. So we did what any good developers would do. We built a page logger. Any time a page was loaded, we'd keep track of it. You know what we found? The 80% of clicks we were paying for were from bots. That's correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs. So we tried contacting Facebook about this. Unfortunately, they wouldn't reply. Do we know who the bots belong too? No. Are we accusing Facebook of using bots to drive up advertising revenue. No. Is it strange? Yes. But let's move on, because who the bots belong to isn't provable.

While we were testing Facebook ads, we were also trying to get Facebook to let us change our name, because we're not Limited Pressing anymore. We contacted them on many occasions about this. Finally, we got a call from someone at Facebook. They said they would allow us to change our name. NICE! But only if we agreed to spend $2000 or more in advertising a month. That's correct. Facebook was holding our name hostage. So we did what any good hardcore kids would do. We cursed that piece of shit out! Damn we were so pissed. We still are. This is why we need to delete this page and move away from Facebook. They're scumbags and we just don't have the patience for scumbags.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this page and liked our posts. We really appreciate it. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, where we don't get shaken down, you can do so here:

Interesting really.

interdasting for sure

Ive never sent facebook ads off facebook. Anyone here tried their ads and sent it to a website?

Forbes covered it today

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjack...are-from-bots/

no , not us:2 cents:

team genius probably thought nobody would notice

I'm sure I'm not the only one with noscript on FF.

Crazy. I get a lot of shit on my Google ads.

80 to 90% of people do not use FF. And shouldn't an ad company not be charging the same for no java?

After reading a little more, I wonder if this is not just some publicity stunt meant to drive people to his new startup business. He provides no analytics really. I'd love to look at some raw data, IP addresses of the bots, etc.

Or at least have someone smarter then me analyze his results. Until then, I think he is just trying to get attention to his company...

I would love to see some proof...

Excellent post, Robert!
Wasteland had a similar experience several months ago with Facebook and, as we were not very deeply entrenched there, just flipped them the bird after the first month of a campaign and moved all of our SocNet back over to Twitter where it probably belongs anyway (something about forced orgasms and Farmville really never was a good organic mix anyway. lol )

Anyway, so happy to see you hard at work at Kink and LOVE your style.

Best Regards,
Colin, Kink's 15 year old pal and allie at Wasteland

So you saw a lot of bot traffic? How were you tracking it?

Facebook is crap. Film at eleven.

We didn't even get as far as forensic tracking on that one.
When CPA = $895 per join for 3 weeks, we hit the stop button and fled.

Sort of one of those "choose the hill you want to die on" scenarios here. lol

C.

Damn! ha. GM spent 10 million before they figured out it was a waste.

The bots didn't even like my ad. We got lots of impressions, but little to no click through on a mainstream ad geared towards women.

I have used it for mainstream physical product with good results...

What do many adult traffic brokers and Facebook have in common? Google Analytics can only track 2% but magically has no problem tracking everything else. They even give similar explanations as to why.

Hint for traffic for women:
Women don't much use FB for shopping and links.
They do, however, LOVE Pinterest !

Go work it. Merry Christmas! lol

pumping their ADrevenues because of failed IPO?

Very interesting post - but no overly surprising. I'd love to find out if the bots are in fact being utilized by Facebook.

If proven - wouldn't this amount to intentional fraud on the part of Facebook? Taking money from advertisers and not delivering legit clicks from actual surfers.

Keep us informed if you would Robert. Good to see you even got mentioned in the Forbes article.

I used to use NoScript for years but I finally removed it recently after getting sick of all the hassle involved in whitelisting every new site. I run Linux so my risk is low. Anyway the number of people using it can't be any higher than 10%, and more than likely 5% at best. Most real people would whitelist a site like Facebook as well.

:1orglaugh

Most people with noscript have adblock on ff too.

Tell that to all the middle America moms reading 50 Shades of Grey. :)

Not good news for the share holders. Fantastic.

yeah, prechecking users maybe, charging a lower rate for semi-untrackable traffic, i dunno.

Another Facebook success story.

I don't think it's bots as it is people accidentally clicking or thinking the ad is something else.

I've seen some pretty bad ads that I'm sure don't convert, but from all the money we've spent on FB, only promotional type events and free game sites convert.

One customer was paying MORE per click on FB then Google for attorney related words but converted at 30%... Lose lose with FB

Another facebook success story?

I know that if you send from the ad to facebook, it is not 80% bots unless they also use fake profiles to do the clicking. We had a like/click setup and almost everyone who clicked then showed up as liking.

Facebook investors (who bought at 40+) looking nervous right now LOL

80% is way to high :2 cents::2 cents:

Hit new low today 21.61 ..... Closed at 21.71

.

I initially scoffed at this, but then after some thought realised - who would benefit from faking FB clicks, considering that they don't (AFAIK?) serve ads on third party sites? No one, unless they were hoping to kill off FB as a long term thing. If it were FB themselves doing the fake clicks, I'm sure they'd be smart enough to write a hitbot that loaded inline objects such as javascript source and images, and clicked on a couple of random links. Very puzzling.

Does FB serve ads to users that don't have js enabled? Is FB even usable without js?

With JS turned off, you WOULD NOT SEE THE ADS in order to click on them! :Oh crap

Likewise, I considered both those...and came to the same conclusions. I can't see it as a long-term, third-party "let's kill off FB" campaign.

As for FB being smart enough to design hitbots that use inline objects and mimic genuine clicks...it doesn't take an Einstein at scripting. But then again, we've all seen a LOT of inept, boneheaded scripting (or lack thereof) take place on Facebook over the years.

Equally puzzled here.

I'd like to see this thread bumped awhile until some answers appear.

80% of the clients have JS turned off and an unknown browser.

Definitive evidence if you ask me.

i have only spent a few $$$ on facebook and nothing converts its a total waste of time but why would they close there page you till get people looking from a facebook page?

ask yourself this, have you ever clicked a FB ad and would you ever click one? there your answer as to if you should or shouldn't advertising on FB.

Here's the OP on FB. 332 comments at the moment.

http://www.facebook.com/limitedpress...09534972507958

The guys who made the observations against Facebook ads brought cold hard numbers with them. Gathered using various analytics software including one built in-house.

This guy provides anecdotal evidence that proves absolutely nothing. He doesn't say whether or not he advertised the sale outside of Facebook, whether or not his friends shared the event. To top things off he's building a business that relies solely on Facebook....

all i need now is 6000 records

thats returned FB users are behind SSL https (most of them) so you're not going to see the traditional IP address after the clickthru is set up. so i can see how someone who does not know how websites and ips work can claim bots but I wouldn't be surprised if FB us just processing the clicks in a way through there own IPs to monitor the stats and see handle the https protocols. they need to post screenshots of these stats

It's been confirmed since his Crimson days that Zuck is a fuck. People blinded by greed are finally waking up as their bank accounts go south. News at 3.:1orglaugh:1orglaugh