Facebook Pushes Advertisers to Look Beyond Views and Likes

By Mike Shields 

Speaking to advertising executives on Tuesday, Facebook Inc. executives downplayed controversy over the company's miscalculation of a video metric and called for ad buyers to focus on metrics tied to business outcomes.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the social network had been overestimating average time spent viewing videos by up to 80% for two years before fixing the mistake, because it wasn't factoring in videos viewed for less than three seconds.

Facebook has apologized for the mistake. At a press conference timed for Advertising Week in New York, executives said advertisers care more about how well Facebook ads impact their business than what can and can't be counted for each individual ad campaign.

Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president of global marketing solutions, said that over the past several days, she's talked to many Facebook ad partners about the issue.

"Universally, I've heard that no one has actually utilized that metric," she said. "It did not impact (return on investment) and did not impact billing."

Ms. Everson emphasized that the video duration number was one of 14 different metrics available to advertisers. And while Facebook continues to allow advertisers to employ more data from third-party research firms, such as comScore, the company has no plans to change how it bills video advertisers, she said.

The company wants to push the ad buying community to deemphasize measures like impressions, likes and clicks and focus on "metrics that actually matter to driving business outcomes," she said. "There is very universal agreement that the industry needs to evolve to metrics that actually matter."

Meanwhile, the group of digital media companies that have spent the past year or so building large video audiences on Facebook in the hopes they will soon be able to make money off that traffic through ads will be left wanting. Ms. Sandberg said right now the company is focused on ramping up its consumer video audience, not its video ad business.

"Monetization for video is not the biggest focus for now," said Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

When asked about Snapchat's recent remarks about how important sound is to video ads, Ms. Everson said that, on average, 50% of videos on Facebook--including both content and ads--are watched with sound on. Facebook is doing a small test of videos that start with the sound on in Australia.

Write to Mike Shields at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 27, 2016 18:55 ET (22:55 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.