SOCIAL
New Study Finds Facebook’s Interest Targeting is Inaccurate Around 30% of the Time

So how accurate are Facebook’s ad targeting options anyway?
The platform has made headlines in recent years over its intricate audience targeting process, which learns about your traits and interests based on in-app activity, then funnels that info into its ad targeting engine, enabling brands to present their offers to the most engaged, receptive audience through its various display options.
Political activists have reportedly used this to sway voter opinions, brands have been able to target users based on things that they may not even realize that they’re interested in themselves as yet. Some studies have even suggested that Facebook knows more about you than friends or family – but in reality, what’s the actual accuracy rate of Facebook’s ad targeting options, and what are the implications of false positives on ad spend?
That’s what a team from North Carolina State University sought to find out, with a new study that examined the specific performance of Facebook’s interest tracking, and how it allocates behaviors and topics to each user.
Their topline finding – around 30% of Facebook’s inferred interests are inaccurate or irrelevant, which could have significant implications for ad spend.
As explained in the study:
“To obtain insights into how Facebook generates interests from a user’s Facebook activities, we performed controlled experiments by creating new accounts and systematically executing numerous planned activities. We found 33.22% of the inferred interests were inaccurate or irrelevant. To understand if our findings hold for a large and diverse sample, we conducted a user study where we recruited 146 participants (through Amazon Mechanical Turk) from different regions of the world to evaluate the accuracy of interests inferred by Facebook. We developed a browser extension to extract data from their own Facebook accounts and ask questions based on such data. Our participants reported a similar range (29%) of inaccuracy as observed in our controlled experiments.”
It is worth noting that this is a relatively small-scale study pool – Facebook has more than 2.9 billion monthly active users, so a group of 146 test subjects is only a fractional element.
But it’s process-focused the results likely hold nonetheless – as noted here, in the first element, the researchers conducted contained testing around how Facebook attributes interests based on activity, with the experimental profiles starting from blank, meaning they had no specific interests attached to begin with.
“Researchers created 14 new user accounts on Facebook. Researchers controlled the demographic data and behavior of each account, and tracked the list of interests that Facebook generated for each account. This experiment allowed us to see which activities were associated with Facebook inferring an interest, and the key finding here is that Facebook takes an aggressive approach to interest inference – even something as simple as scrolling through a page led to Facebook determining that a user has an interest in that subject.”
Of course, everyone knows that Facebook is tracking everything that you do in the app, but based on this study, even the smallest action can cause an inference in your ad targeting profile, which can lead to inaccurate targeting.
The researchers also note that Facebook’s system often doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative interactions, which can also lead to inaccuracies.
“For instance, we commented negatively on a Harry Potter page and received interests in Harry Potter and Daniel Radcliffe (the lead actor in the Harry Potter movies).”
The study also showed that, at times, Facebook’s system will incorrectly attribute entities:
“For example, upon visiting the Apple (Tech company) page, Apple (fruit) was inferred as an interest.”
There would be varying degrees of errors within this type of matching, and these are just some examples of how your interests are sometimes misattributed in the app – which is probably not overly surprising, but the scale of inaccurate results is worthy of note.
Could this be because of Apple’s ATT update?
It’s possible that, due to Facebook losing data insight, as more users cut it off from tracking on iOS as a result of Apple’s ATT prompts, that Facebook is now putting more emphasis on in-app signals to fuel its audience segmentation instead. We don’t have comparative data on this, as the majority of this study was conducted after the implementation of Apple’s ATT alerts (in April 2021), but that could be another element at play, which could skew Facebook’s tracking.
But either way, it’s an interesting consideration. Up till now, Facebook’s data-gathering machine has been viewed as the most comprehensive tracking system ever created, and a powerful audience targeting engine. But if it’s not accurate 1/3 of the time, that’s a concern, which could reduce advertising performance.
So what do you do about it? Well, as an advertiser, there’s not much that you can do.
Using Lookalike Audiences and similar matching should improve accuracy, based on a range of factors, as opposed to singular topic matching – but really, you’re putting trust in Facebook’s systems to drive the best results, which means that if there are errors in attribution, that will impact your performance.
Meta is always working to improve its systems in this respect, and more recent feedback has been that Facebook ad targeting and performance is improving, so it could also be that these errors are being ironed out over time. But it really comes down to tracking your ad performance, and refining based on the results that you see. Facebook ads require a learning phase to maximize performance, and you would hope, within that, that it’s also weeding out false positives like this.
But it’s an interesting study either way, which could provide additional insight into your campaign performance.
You can read the full study and summary here, while you can check out what Facebook thinks your interests are here.
Source link
SOCIAL
Elon Musk’s X and Amazon discuss potential collaboration

In a significant development in the social media industry, Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is reportedly engaging in preliminary discussions …
Source link
SOCIAL
Threads Looks Set to be Made Available to European Users Next Week

Good news with EU social media fans, with Threads looking set for a December 14th launch in the region, just in time to capitalize on holiday engagement.
As reported by The Verge, EU Instagram users can now access a countdown timer at www.threads.net, which seemingly indicates the exact time for the upcoming EU launch. Meta hasn’t made any official announcement, but the countdown clock is only visible to European users, while EU users can also search ‘ticket’ in the Instagram app to find a digital invitation to Threads.
Which replicates the original Threads launch back in July, which included similar Easter eggs and indicators pointing to the launch date (like the above).
The EU launch of Threads has been delayed by evolving EU data privacy regulations, which, due to the timing of the implementation of these new rules, has put additional development burden on the Threads team to ensure compliance with the new parameters. Amid the initial Threads launch, Instagram (and Threads) chief Adam Mosseri said that it could take “many months” for Threads to reach EU users due to these additional complications.
But we have since seen indicators that Threads is coming.
Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta had an established plan to launch Threads to EU users in December, while app researchers have found various references to an upcoming “Threads EU Launch” in the app’s code.

Given the various strands of evidence, it does indeed seem likely that European users will get access to the app next week. And again, with social media usage increasing during the holiday break, that would also provide the best opportunity for Meta to capitalize on its opportunities.
Which are seemingly on the rise. As more people turn away from Elon Musk’s X project, largely due to Musk’s own divisive commentary, they’re seeking a real-time social alternative, and for many Threads is already filling that void.
That’s especially true for journalists, a common target of Musk’s attacks, who are now establishing new networks within the Threads ecosphere. And while live sports engagement remains high on X, Threads is also making a push to win over more sports communities, even placing ads courtside during the new NBA in-season tournament showcase in Las Vegas.

That’s seemingly prompting more sports fans to post in the app, which will expand again with the arrival of potentially millions more users in the EU region.
So how many more users can Threads expect to gain as a result of its European expansion?
Based on Meta’s EU disclosure data on active users, Instagram currently serves some 259 million monthly active users in Europe.
Instagram’s total, official user count is 1 billion MAU, while Threads now has over 100 million monthly users. So presumably, around a tenth of active IG users are also signing up to the app, which would mean that, at a rough estimate, we’re set to see around 25.9 million new Threads users incoming, if/when Threads is launched in the EU region.
Which is probably not as many as you might expect, but this is based on rough estimates, as Instagram reportedly has more than a billion actives now, and we don’t know the exact, current user counts of either app.
But either way, it will expand the conversation in the app, and enable more people to take part, which has its own expanded benefits. And with around 60 million X users also in the region, that could see a number of them looking to make the switch.
Which is the real aim here. Meta has created Threads as the X alternative, aiming to scoop up former Twitter cast-offs who are unhappy with Elon’s changes at the app. In order to do that, Threads needs to be available in all regions where X users may be looking to jump ship, so its EU expansion is another critical step in this respect.
It’ll be interesting to see what Threads user numbers rise to over the holiday period, and whether it can indeed become a genuine rival for X in total active engagement.
We’ll keep you updated on any official announcement on the Threads EU launch.
SOCIAL
The best social media hacks to blow up your following in just a year

-
WORDPRESS3 days ago
8 Best Zapier Alternatives to Automate Your Website
-
MARKETING6 days ago
How Does Success of Your Business Depend on Choosing Type of Native Advertising?
-
MARKETING7 days ago
OpenAI’s Drama Should Teach Marketers These 2 Lessons
-
MARKETING5 days ago
Intro to Amazon Non-endemic Advertising: Benefits & Examples
-
SOCIAL6 days ago
Paris mayor to stop using ‘global sewer’ X
-
SOCIAL3 days ago
YouTube Highlights its Top Trends, Topics and Creators of 2023
-
SEO6 days ago
The 17 Best Ad Networks For Content Creators In 2024
-
PPC4 days ago
12 Holiday Emails for Customers (Templates & Examples!)
You must be logged in to post a comment Login