Report: Startup Says 80 pct of Facebook Ad Clicks Came From Bots

[engine]

Report: Startup Says 80 pct of Facebook Ad Clicks Came From Bots [latimes.com]

A start-up company has said it's leaving Facebook because 80% of its ad clicks are coming from bots and the social network will also not let it change its Pages name without committing to paying thousands in advertisements.

Limited Run said it's done with the 950 million member social network after finding that nearly none of its ad clicks come from real people on Facebook. The company, which goes by its former name on Facebook, said it discovered that bots make most of the ad clicks after using six analytic services as well its own analysis.

"Unfortunately, while testing their ad system, we noticed some very strange things," the company said in a note. "Facebook was charging us for clicks, yet we could only verify about 20% of them actually showing up on our site."

[Digmen1]

Wow
That's pretty damming.
I did make some sales on Facebook but the click bids got too dear for me.
I wonder if the same could apply to Google Ad words.

I know that on ebid.net a lot of my views come from Bots.
But I am not paying for them, so although it annoying, at least it is not costing me money.

[engine]

I find it odd that any company allow bots to count for clicks. It should be relatively easy to spot them, or at least a pattern, most of the time.

Ultimately, bad clicks hurt the ad program, so it's in no one's interest.

[AlyssaS]

Here's what the company Limited Pressing wrote on their facebook page:

[facebook.com...]

[Leosghost]

Mark has always considered anyone who uses FB as DFs..

IMO a lot of CEOs, CFOs,VCs involved in .2 and.3 think the same about their users/ shareholders..

Most of the time they are correct..many people including those running your pension funds or banks are indeed DFs..
[bbc.co.uk...]
or perhaps it is that they don't care, because it is not their money, it is yours, and they get paid their commissions whether the stocks they buy with your money, rise or fall ..and if they get fired, they leave with enough to never have to work again..

So why should they care ? ..they don't..

In related news...G is still running Groupon ads...

[Robert Charlton]

I hadn't seen this discussion when I posted a critique of the Limited Pressing story in this thread...

Facebook Reveals 8.7pct, or 83.09 Million Accounts Are Fake
http://www.webmasterworld.com/facebook/4481242.htm [webmasterworld.com]

I won't redo the post here, except to note that it cites both the cnet story (which reprinted the original Limited Pressing blog post), and also a critique of the Limited Pressing figures by AimClear, which thinks the figures are way out of line, but that this was a problem that FB could and should have avoided.