Facebook apologizes for overstating key ad metric read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/988-facebook-apologizes-for-overstating-key-ad-metric

Facebook Inc. on Friday apologized for overestimating a key video metric for two years, a miscalculation that irked advertisers and media companies that have poured resources into video efforts on the social network.

Facebook had said that the "discrepancy" did not impact advertising billings and introduced newer metrics to replace the previous method.

Buyers and marketers are upset with Facebook Inc. after knowing that Facebook vastly overestimated average viewing time for video ads on its platform for two years.

The metric should have reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by the total number of people who played the video. But it didn’t – it reflected the total time spent watching a video divided by only the number of ‘views’ of a video," David Fischer, vice president of business and marketing partnerships, wrote in a Facebook post.

Mr. Fischer said that Facebook noticed the discrepancy about a month ago, fixed it and notified its partners. He also said that the miscounting did not impact other figures, like number of video views. “We sincerely apologize for the issues this has created for our clients,” Mr. Fischer wrote.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Facebook told advertising buying agency Publicis Media that the video metric had been overstated by between 60% and 80%.

 

A letter Publicis Media sent to clients, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said the metric issue “once again illuminates the absolute need to have 3rd party tagging and verification on Facebook’s platform. Two years of reporting inflated performance numbers is unacceptable.”