With all the JavaScript wizardry the devs at Facebook manage to shoehorn into Facebook (and support so many different configurations of browser and operating systems) it constantly amazes me that their targeted ads get such poor performance:
A Facebook advertiser who has spent thousands of dollars on campaigns targeted by age and country says that the site’s new reporting tools for advertisers have exposed a serious problem: Either the targeting routines are broken, or the reporting is completely off. An ad meant for U.K. teens went mostly to the U.S. and other European countries instead.
How can you have so much information about users and not be able to target to them effectively?
Back in 2007 Nick reported:
Facebook has continuously produced less than stellar results for advertisers. With historically high CPMs and historically low click-thrus, Facebook is facing a challenge. Their new ad system has significantly reduced the CPM for those that opt for the cost-per-click (CPC) model. The only problem is that there are no clicks. While the targeting is phenomenal, Facebook users are more engaged by the content within the site rather than the advertisements. Perhaps Facebook is a little too engaging.
I just find it odd to have so much behavioral and demographic data and not being able to get ads to perform.
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