Facebook caught in a lie. Many questions surfaced last week when Facebook Inc. overestimated by up to 80% the average time people spent watching video ads on its platform. There has been a huge move from traditional media spend to Mobile Platform media spend over the past 5 years. Measuring the return on investment has not been easy for most companies. Facebook shares how many clicks an ad receives and how long an ad video is watch; however, this does not always lead to a sale. Facebook admitted that the metric used its used for reporting for the past two years was artificially inflated because it only captured video view for more than three seconds. It has since been determined Facebook may have overestimated view by as much as 60-80%
Today Facebook owns 22% of a $46 billion dollar mobile U.S. ad market and Facebooks mobile ad market jumped 80% in the last quarter as most people have move form the conventional desk top and laptop to powerful handheld devices. The problem the Mobile Ad industry faces is there is not a true measurement by a third party that can estimate the true clicks or views of video. These metrics are measured by the platforms and can sometimes be misconstrued. In other words the online platforms are telling customer what the ad platforms are worth without a third party measurement. there ARE NO TRUE CHECKS AND BALANCES such as Nelson rating for conventional television.
In a world where technology, mobile broadband continues to be more an more pervasive, its important to have measurements where real data can be captured so true return on investment can be measured, and this needs to be accomplished by a third party software provider that has right to all social platforms, big and small where marketing dollars are spent.