Facebook has revealed that several of its marketing metrics have been misreported, and it is now rolling out fixes to correct them. The social platform vowed to be more transparent after discovering similar errors earlier this year. The latest update enhances certain data, including estimated reach, graph API and streaming reactions.
Facebook was criticised for miscalculating video-viewing metrics in September, but in a new business blog post, it revealed that it is “important” to be open about any notable changes made to these metrics moving forward. This is the third time that the tech giant has had to correct metrics in the last three months.
The first enhancement will improve the methodology for calculating the reach of ad campaigns, which Facebook claims will help advertisers get a better idea of their target audience numbers and how they are spread across multiple platforms, including Instagram and Audience Network. Advertisers are likely to see around a ten per cent change at most when using this tool.
“To help advertisers get a better view of the number of people they can expect to reach with ads, this week we are updating how we calculate the numbers that appear in our estimated reach tool – found when creating an ad,” Facebook said in an official blog post. “When an advertiser begins creating a campaign, the tool provides them with an estimate of both the potential overall reach and the estimated daily reach of their ad campaign.”
Live video reactions data is also getting an overhaul. Users can engage with content as many times as they like, but Facebook found that the “reactions from shares of post” metric, which is only supposed to register the first reaction, had actually been counting every user reaction. Broadcasters can expect this figure to drop by around 25 per cent following the change, though their “reactions on post” metric is likely to increase significantly.
The final issue that Facebook discovered is linked to the counts for Share and Like buttons via the Graph API when entering a URL in the mobile app’s search bar and the fact that these metrics can be different depending on where advertisers look. Facebook is currently working on a way to resolve the issue and confirmed that an update would roll out as soon as possible.
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