My Three Recent Facebook Campaigns Have Been Overrun W/ Click Fraud.
- PPC/SEM |
Just a heads up on my recent experience(s) with Facebook advertising, boosted posts and paying to promote a business page. In short, based on my experiences, I'd NEVER again boost a post or promote a business page if you're expecting real people.
I'll start with the paying to promote a business page. I'd heard that their network had been infiltrated with click farms who like legitimate pages so that they can appear less suspicious in selling likes on a third party scam site. So even when you pay Facebook directly to promote your page, you still end up getting over run with fake accounts. That's exactly what happened on mine. Over the course of 3 weeks, we promoted my fitness page (again: paying FB directly) and got right around 7,000 "likes." Problem is, any time you click through to any of the accounts...none of them seem human and all of them like 10x as many things as they have friends. Also, none interact with our page. Hell, they don't even interact with their own pages. Account after account, everyone we clicked was the same: scammy feeling.
Boosted Posts: Another one of my Facebook pages (an American political site) was grown organically and also has around 7,000 likes on it. I paid Facebook to boost a post (written in English, about US Politics) and at the end of the day....had two engagements: both from non English speaking accounts out of Turkey. There isn't a snowball's chance in Egypt that anyone from Turkey (a teenager, no less) would have given a rat's patoot about the post that was being boosted. This has happened the last several times.
And finally, Facebook Advertising. I don't have as concrete evidence regarding Facebook advertising being filled with fraud, but i've not in any of my last three campaigns had even one conversion. As everyone on an IM forum would know, this could be for any of a million reasons. It's just tough to believe that at least a chunk of the PPC activity didn't come from the same junk traffic that the boosted posts and promoted accounts very clearly, without question had.
I now have zero faith in the credibility of Facebook ads.
I'll start with the paying to promote a business page. I'd heard that their network had been infiltrated with click farms who like legitimate pages so that they can appear less suspicious in selling likes on a third party scam site. So even when you pay Facebook directly to promote your page, you still end up getting over run with fake accounts. That's exactly what happened on mine. Over the course of 3 weeks, we promoted my fitness page (again: paying FB directly) and got right around 7,000 "likes." Problem is, any time you click through to any of the accounts...none of them seem human and all of them like 10x as many things as they have friends. Also, none interact with our page. Hell, they don't even interact with their own pages. Account after account, everyone we clicked was the same: scammy feeling.
Boosted Posts: Another one of my Facebook pages (an American political site) was grown organically and also has around 7,000 likes on it. I paid Facebook to boost a post (written in English, about US Politics) and at the end of the day....had two engagements: both from non English speaking accounts out of Turkey. There isn't a snowball's chance in Egypt that anyone from Turkey (a teenager, no less) would have given a rat's patoot about the post that was being boosted. This has happened the last several times.
And finally, Facebook Advertising. I don't have as concrete evidence regarding Facebook advertising being filled with fraud, but i've not in any of my last three campaigns had even one conversion. As everyone on an IM forum would know, this could be for any of a million reasons. It's just tough to believe that at least a chunk of the PPC activity didn't come from the same junk traffic that the boosted posts and promoted accounts very clearly, without question had.
I now have zero faith in the credibility of Facebook ads.
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