Facebook Adds Ad Feedback

A couple of weeks ago on my other blog, The Challenge Dividend, I wrote about my experience testing Facebook ads for a 24-hour Guitar Hero/Rock Band fund-raiser that we ran at our office. The short story is that, I got only a .02% click-through rate on the ad despite targeting the 40,000 people who say they are fans of Guitar Hero. These results were no different from another test leg against the completely un-targeted 24 million Facebook users. The conclusion: People are not looking at ads despite great targeting.

This post attracted a ton of attention. It got picked up by Wired editor and The Long Tail author Chris Anderson, and was featured in the weekly email by user experience guru Jakob Nielsen. I’m still getting about 40 people a day reading this post and a ton of comments, must of which overwhelmingly agree that Facebook ads are not the solution to marketers’ needs, despite its 24 million pairs of eyeballs.

Well, now I have to give Facebook a little credit for a baby step toward meaningful marketing. I learned last week that the company is testing a new feature that allows its users to provide ratings on the advertising that they see. As described by Rob Webb and seen in the photo above, some users see a pair of up/down thumbs below display ads. By clicking one, a box pops up asking users to describe why they liked or disliked the ad. Webb makes some interesting points:

“The fact that Facebook is implementing these kinds of features before they launch an Ads API shows that they are approaching mass advertising very carefully. They know that they need users to make ads have value, and the better the ads are, the more valuable their ad space will be. Also, it’s quite possible that having some interaction with ads beyond just clicking them will incentivize users to click more ads.”

Clearly Facebook has learned that building an advertising-based business model around its vast legion of users is not going to be easy. I like the direction of its ad-rating test, as its gives users some control. And it might lead to better, more relevant advertising. I could see all manner of advertisers doing something similar. TiVo already has a thumbs up/down button - why not send this data along to advertisers as feedback worth paying for?

That said, at the end of the day I don’t believe this will do much to improve the results for Facebook or its advertisers. As I learned in my Facebook ad test, people have simply learned to tune out the visual clutter of these interruptive ads. Relevancy is not defined solely by demographics and interests; instead, it is defined by what is relevant to the consumer in the moment. In visiting Facebook, the relevancy is around checking messages, seeing what friends are up to, and maybe playing a game. Viewing and rating ads is simply not on the agenda.

Facebook continues to be an amazing case study on the future of marketing… and meaning.