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Comment by kin | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely believe that advertisers are only pulling out because it's the PR thing to do. There are many other companies that would love to take advantage of a less competitive bid for Facebook ad space and I have no doubt they will be taking advantage of it and will continue to spend boats of money on Facebook.

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Two of the largest advertisers don’t think Facebook ads are effective. The latest, P&G, specifically call out how narrow targeting is ineffective.

> After cutting back on certain digital ads, “we didn’t see a reduction in the growth rate,” said Mr. Moeller during the call. “What that tells me is that the spending we cut was largely ineffective.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304192704577406...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face...

I wonder why Facebook doesn't make deals with supermarkets to collect data on every single purchase. There's no doubt that Facebook advertising would be far more effective if it knew when John Smith last purchased toothpaste.

Yeah I'm not surprised. It's really hard to track how any online advertising leads to B&M purchases. On the flip side, I have no doubt online retailers thrive with Faceboook ads.

Agree, it's a great platform for advertisers and they know it's great for targeting and conversions. Most of the outrage and awareness seems to be in the tech sphere (the vocal minority?) while the rest of the world just gets on with it.

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