Comments on: Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads

By: paul

paul — Mon, 23 May 2011 11:23:33 +0000

I have the same Issue, Facebook charged me up to now over 300 € and the clicks to not correspond with google analytics. So its fraud BIG TIME.
Probably a script which goes through every month and creates these random fake clicks.

The other thing is, I am from a small Island with 4 major cities one being the large capital City.
If I check the demographic click report in Facebook I can see the same pattern of clicks from these 4 locations. Over a test period of 4 month.
It is very suspicious that all these cities have a percentage of clicks every month and every time they within the same percentage for example the capital city has always around 58% to 64% impressions and clicks, always in the same range for four consecutive months.
The same is with the other 3 locations where as here the percentage is in a lower range given the smaller size of this cities.
How can this be so balanced?
If I check my google analytics account for the last 3 years I never had so balanced visitors all over the island.

I stopped my add and set it down to 0.01 €/click just in case they keep charging me.
They do show the add on their pages, also to the right groups you specified. As I had some friends telling me that they saw my add while surfing the facebook. The Issue is that they charge you for clicks which are not real….

By: Paxson

Paxson — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:17:10 +0000

I ran more than a thousand dollars in ads for a political campaign and I’m convinced that Facebook ads are a scam. Supposedly 500 people clicked on our “donation” links, but of those, not a single one actually made a donation (except me, when I tested the system to make sure we were logging donations accurately). That 500 people would click a button to go to a donation page in a highly visible statewide election but not a single one would actually follow through to donate is EXTREMELY suspicious!

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:45:38 +0000

I just finished spending $176 to generate 149 clicks on my ad. Facebook wanted me to keep going but I first wanted to look at my results…and the results were NO sales. I’m now wondering if these clicks were fraudulent.

By: Alex JM

Alex JM — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:51:33 +0000

i have just started running adds on facebook. and their clicks is twice what google analytics says i got . plus they actually went over my daily limit . i sent an e-mail to no response. if i can not get good answers in the next 24 hours i am shutting it down. i run a start up ligitimate business and can not afford to pay for air. Not only that i also contribute to a magazine and i will write about it until the cows come home. This is clearly fraud on the part of Facebook. If i get a response i will let you know

By: Barry Farmer

Barry Farmer — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:49:45 +0000

I have tracked Facebook clicks on numerous occassions using various software and each time there is a difference of between 21% and 58% on received clicks and billed clicks.

Facebook at defrauding people here either directly or by negligence.

And here is the cast iron proof of why they are defrauding people. Most of the fraudulent activity I have tracked comes from their ‘Apps’ section. So I have asked can I stop my ads showing on any ‘Apps’ pages.

No we dont allow that.

You dont allow that because you are ripping off your customers.

Just a matter of time before this blows up in their face.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 03:48:02 +0000

Facebook COULD be so useful given how we can identify people that would be interested in our products based on some of their profile info. HOWEVER, as near as I can tell, it’s a total scam rooted within Facebook.

I set up a special landing page for a product and created an ad. It is a legit product. Within minutes my account quota was used up with 25 clicks. However, I checked my server logs and show NO VISITS from any Facebook visitors except some from organic listing much earlier in the day (before the landing page or ad existed)! It was a complete waste of money. I can’t see how they will continue to make any money from legit advertisers if/when those advertisers astutely become aware their advertising dollars are better spent elsewhere.

Like I said at the beginning, it’s a shame, because FB could have had a good thing, advertisers would too, and FB users would have ads targeted to their preferences and, since ads were making money, could keep free FB accounts. As it is, the whole thing is doomed for failure eventually — or FB will just start charging and make money that way.

By: makkele

makkele — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:34:52 +0000

The same happens to me! my fb ads management says that i’ve 90 clicks on my site but google analytics says only 48 from fb!! there is something that we can do to stop this?? such a mail address to report this disaster?? any help is appreciated!!
thanks

By: Neil Conway

Neil Conway — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:16:22 +0000

I noticed Facebook was scamming me with fraudulent clicks. Google analytics showed my visits were mostly under 1 second and even those poor quality clicks outnumbered what I was billed for. Then today I noticed this message on my ad page:

“Recently, we have detected an increase in invalid clicks on Facebook. Your account was impacted and as a result, we are crediting your account.”

I received $1.64 in ad credits -about 1% of my small campaign. I’ll never trust facebook again.

By: Jonathan Shub

Jonathan Shub — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:33:46 +0000

As an attorney who has been involved on behalf of advertisers in click fraud type cases, this is very troubling and certainly worthy of further investigation.

By: Jbenet

Jbenet — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:08:14 +0000

I have been experimenting with FC ads 3 times now, and for certain Statcounter shows that I was billed TWICE for every incoming click from falsebook on my last campaign.

Just set up a new site, with google analytics AND statcounter, the site is getting zero organic traffic, and FB tells me 5 people clicked in, YET I have had zero visitors still…

So either google and statcounter are junk, or… my guess is that Facebook is running a scam, and maybe Ralph Nader should get his Consumer Reports to look into it.