Facebook admits to inflating advertisers’ video views
The platform’s VP of business and marketing partnerships said it was ‘only one of the many metrics’ you can view, but the company ‘take[s] any mistake seriously.’
The platform admitted that it inflated metrics for its videos—misleading marketers who believed their video efforts were more successful than they actually were.
It boils down to this: Facebook claims it was unintentionally boosting the time spent watching videos because it only counted a video as being viewed if it was seen for more than three seconds. It didn’t include persons who simply didn’t watch or those who watched for fewer than three seconds. So, if you skipped a video or scrolled past it quickly on your phone, Facebook acted like it never even happened.
RELATED: Learn to produce newscast-ready video and B-roll that media notice and fans share.
Facebook assured advertisers that they weren’t overcharged. The company issued two statements about the discrepancy. The first read:
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