So I'm curious after reading this, since Facebook lives off advertising, do advertisers hold Facebook accountable for generating a certain # of clickthroughs, or heavens forbid, some other ROI metric for their advertising dollars?
Or are advertisers just funneling money into FB regardless of any measurable impact on their revenue just because there are "N millions/billions of active users" monthly on it?
They could certainly claim this even if you logged in once a day, never looked at any ads and then just left. Why continue to pay money for advertising?
For Google, I can see how it makes sense, because you are already in "search mode" for something, so if they pop in an ad that is even semi-relevant, you might click on it - I know I have... but Facebook?
It seems that money follows eyeballs...whether those eyeballs actually deliver any value... who cares. Or am I off?
I think your assertions may be correct and you'd still be off in that the some large fraction of the money facebook takes from big companies came from advertising avenues subject to exactly the same risk of being ignored.
Think billboards, train stations, toilets, tv, cinemas. All of those could be ignored and are often unrelated to the activity conducted at the time.
The value of Facebook if nothing else is that it is one central point to reach everyone's eye at any point in the day.
So for the non-data driven decision maker, Facebook at worst will be no worse than other low-yielding "mindshare/brand awareness" channels and is at least current and conveniently executed. (consider the admin that goes with negotiating and conducting lots of adhoc coverage with each channel)
Or are advertisers just funneling money into FB regardless of any measurable impact on their revenue just because there are "N millions/billions of active users" monthly on it?
They could certainly claim this even if you logged in once a day, never looked at any ads and then just left. Why continue to pay money for advertising?
For Google, I can see how it makes sense, because you are already in "search mode" for something, so if they pop in an ad that is even semi-relevant, you might click on it - I know I have... but Facebook?
It seems that money follows eyeballs...whether those eyeballs actually deliver any value... who cares. Or am I off?