TechCrunch reported yesterday how Facebook is enraging small business advertisers due to massive click fraud.
It turns out that SMBs have been complaining for weeks — and although Facebook has invited angry customers to submit their logs for formal review — the company has been surprisingly slow to genuinely engage the issue. Just this morning Brandon McCormick, from the Facebook Communications team, acknowledged the issue and responded:
I wanted to chime in to make sure that our voice was part of this discussion and to clarify how we are addressing this issue. We take click quality very seriously and have a series of measures in place to detect it. We have large volumes of data to analyze click patterns and can identify suspicious activity quickly. Over the past few days, we have seen an increase in suspicious clicks. We have identified a solution which we have already begun to implement and expect will be completely rolled out by the end of today. In addition, we are identifying impacted accounts and will ensure that advertisers are credited appropriately.
You have to wonder what took them so long to get naked and engage this conversation?
Maybe they’re a little deaf as a result of the noise stemming from their financing and valuation discussions? Perhaps they’re just aser focused on growing top-line revenue from $280m to $550m in 2009 — and don’t have time to listen to what customers think?
I’d be intersted to know what you think? Why has Facebook been slow to repsond to this current spate of advertising complaints?
