Facebook finds more errors in its metrics

Similar to video viewability, display viewability will track when and how long ads appears on a page; these measurement offerings will begin rolling it out in the first quarter of 2017.

The changes and the metrics misses will have little to no effect on Facebook’s billing, ad rates or business standing, according to an investor response from Peter Stabler, senior internet and ad equity analyst for Wells Fargo. It’s also partnering with Nielsen to include Facebook video viewership in Nielsen’s Digital Content Ratings (DCR), which promises to give media companies a comparable look across digital and TV metrics. We have now fixed this issue.

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia CEO, Vijay Solanki, said the association supported Facebook’s move towards more transparent measurement and the further adoption of third-party measurement systems and metrics. These miscalculations are particularly worrisome to advertisers and publishers. This is something Facebook is now considering, said Ms. Everson.

The social network says it uncovered the issues after undergoing a comprehensive internal metrics audit and that none of the metrics in question affected the way Facebook calculates how it charges for advertising.

Facebook is moving to restore confidence among advertisers and publishers that it is accurately measuring how often and how long users see videos, news articles, ads and corporate messages on its social network. However, that stat does not account for users who visit a Page multiple times. On its latest earnings call, the company said the number of users logging into Facebook daily jumped 17% in a year to 1.17 billion humans. And, Facebook Pages instead of unique visitor count, it “double-counted repeat visitors”.

Facebook made sure to stress that “the vast majority of reach data in the Page Insights dashboard was unaffected”. Reach counts will now be based on viewable impressions. The new change means organic page reach will be 20% lower on average.

The company also admits that for Instant Articles, its fast-to-load feature created to get eyeballs in front of publishers’ content, “We’ve determined that the average time spent per article had been over-reported by 7-8% on average since August of a year ago”. Facebook reported an overestimation in this metric by an average of 7 to 8 percent since August of past year. The adjusted numbers are probably going to show a 35% increase in the number of fully watched ad videos.

In September, Facebook admitted a major error with its video view numbers.

The platform will also draw on industry executives to form a Measurement Council, akin to the Client Council that Facebook created in 2011 to sync marketer priorities with the product development process. For context, there are 220 metrics that Facebook counts across its platform.

“These efforts are long-term investments, and we’ll continue to share updates on the Metrics FYI blog”, the social media company concluded in its post. Facebook simply cannot afford to make such calculation blunders, considering its level of acceptance in the market. There are even regional and global councils.