It
was
Valentine’s
Day
when
Meta’s
ad
platform
started
going
off
the
rails.
RC
Williams,
the
co-founder
of
the
Philadelphia-based
marketing
agency
1-800-D2C,
had
set
one
of
Meta’s
automated
ad
tools
to
run
campaigns
for
two
separate
clients.
But
when
he
checked
the
platform
that
day,
he
found
that
Meta
had
blown
through
roughly
75
percent
of
the
daily
ad
budgets
for
both
clients
in
under
a
couple
of
hours.
Williams
told
The
Verge
that
the
ads’
CPMs,
or
cost
per
impressions,
were
roughly
10
times
higher
than
normal.
A
usual
CPM
of
under
$28
had
inflated
to
roughly
$250,
way
above
the
industry
average.
That
would
have
been
bad
enough
if
the
revenue
earned
from
those
ads
wasn’t
nearly
zero.
If
you’re
not
a
marketer,
this
might
feel
like
spending
a
week’s
worth
of
grocery
money
on
a
prime
cut
of
wagyu
at
a
steakhouse,
only
for
the
waiter
to
return
with
a
floppy
slider.
The
Verge
spoke
to
several
marketers
and
businesses
that
advertise
on
Meta’s
platforms
who
tell
a
similar
story.
Meta’s
automated
ad
platform
has
been
blowing
through
budgets
and
failing
to
deliver
sales.
Small
businesses
have
seen
their
ad
dollars
get
wiped
out
and
wasted
as
a
result,
and
some
have
said
the
bouts
of
overspending
are
driving
them
from
Meta’s
platforms.
“Meta’s
unwillingness
to
be
transparent
or
accountable
with
the
performance
issues
and
glitches
is
causing
mass
uncertainty.”
“Meta’s
unwillingness
to
be
transparent
or
accountable
with
the
performance
issues
and
glitches
is
causing
mass
uncertainty,”
Karl
Baker,
founder
of
meditation
startup
Mindfulness
Works,
wrote
in
a
message
to
The
Verge.
The
faulty
ad
service
in
question,
known
as
Advantage
Plus
shopping
campaigns,
is
part
of
a
full
suite
of
AI-enabled
ad
tools
that
Meta
pitches
to
businesses
as
a
faster
and
more
efficient
alternative
to
manual
ad
campaigns.
To
create
an
ad
campaign,
advertisers
upload
their
creative
assets,
pick
their
conversion
goals
(e.g.,
getting
more
customers
to
make
purchases
on
Instagram),
and
then
set
their
budget
caps.
Meta
hyped
Advantage
Plus
shopping
campaigns
during
earnings
calls
as
a
carefree,
“set
it
and
forget
it”
automated
solution
to
online
ads.
But
that
hasn’t
been
the
case,
marketers
say.
Advantage
Plus
shopping
campaigns
have
been
unpredictable,
seemingly
working
well
on
some
days
and
then
not
so
well
on
other
days.
The
subreddit
r/FacebookAds
has
become
a
sort
of
24/7
help
desk
for
Advantage
Plus.
Recent
headings
discussing
the
issues
include
“Advantage+
sucks,”
“Is
Facebook
broken
rn,”
and
“Is
it
just
me?”
“People
are
always
saying,
‘Is
it
me?’
or
‘Is
it
Meta?’”
Baker
said.
What
Williams
and
many
other
marketers
thought
was
a
one-time
glitch
by
Advantage
Plus
ended
up
becoming
a
recurring
incident
for
weeks.
“Since
February
14th,
[Advantage
Plus]
has
overspent
on
numerous
occasions
and
ignored
the
cost
caps
we
have
in
place
on
it,”
he
said.
Problems
have
persisted
into
April.
“We
have
a
couple
of
clients
for
whom
we
completely
stopped
Advantage
Plus
due
to
these
anomalies,”
said
Aniruddha
Mishra,
director
of
growth
at
Miami-based
digital
marketing
agency
Node
Media.
He
noted
that
for
some
clients,
CPMs
on
Meta
were
anywhere
from
three
to
four
times
more
expensive
than
they
were
last
year.
Advertisers
say
getting
support
from
Meta
has
been
a
challenge,
too.
Meta
laid
off
thousands
of
employees
over
the
past
year
and
gutted
many
of
its
customer
support
teams.
As
Digiday
reported,
Meta’s
ad
accounts
teams
were
downsized,
and
many
client
inquiries
are
now
being
directed
to
AI
chatbots.
Several
of
the
marketers
that
The
Verge
spoke
to
said
that
there’s
been
a
noticeable
decline
in
responsiveness
from
Meta
since
the
transition.
“The
only
thing
[Meta]
acknowledged
was
there
was
a
platform
bug
on
February
14th
and
apologized
for
the
inconvenience.”
“The
only
thing
[Meta]
acknowledged
was
there
was
a
platform
bug
on
February
14th
and
apologized
for
the
inconvenience,”
said
Williams.
“They
didn’t
tell
us
what
actually
happened.”
Meta
eventually
refunded
1-800-D2C
for
the
incident,
but
Williams
said
it
took
him
several
tries
to
finally
get
someone
from
the
company
to
acknowledge
him.
The
company
issued
the
refund
almost
a
month
after
the
incident.
While
some
users
speculate
that
Advantage
Plus
is
“glitching”
or
“broken,”
Meta’s
response
has
been
to
insist
that
the
tool
is
functioning
as
it
should.
“I’ve
reached
out
to
representatives
at
Meta,
and
I’ve
been
told
that
they’re
not
aware
of
any
sort
of
glitch,
which
is
truly
shocking,
because
all
my
co-founder
friends
who
work
in
e-commerce
share
this
sentiment.
They’re
dealing
with
the
same
thing,”
said
Adriel
Darvish,
the
CEO
of
a
luxury
handbag
and
jewelry
service
called
Switch,
in
a
phone
interview
with
The
Verge.
“This
is
something
universal
that
everyone
is
experiencing.”
With
the
problems
continuing
to
pile
on,
Williams
said
his
marketing
firm
completely
halted
its
use
of
Advantage
Plus
in
early
April.
Instead,
they’ve
gone
back
to
the
old-fashioned
method
of
buying
Facebook
and
Instagram
ads
manually.
Notably,
going
back
to
the
pre-AI,
pre-automated
way
of
doing
things
hasn’t
really
taken
a
toll
on
the
firm’s
human
labor
force.
“Maybe
an
extra
10
to
20
minutes
or
so
to
build
out
the
ad
sets,
but
nothing
crazy,”
said
Williams.
Meta
first
launched
Advantage
Plus
shopping
campaigns
globally
in
the
fall
of
2022,
when
the
state
of
online
advertising
was
in
an
uncertain
place.
Just
a
year
before,
Apple
had
launched
its
App
Tracking
Transparency
feature
with
iOS
14.5,
giving
users
an
easy
way
to
opt
out
of
the
third-party
app-based
tracking
that
powers
many
online
ads.
Meta
opposed
the
change,
saying
it
would
“change
the
internet
as
we
know
it”
and
threaten
the
future
of
many
online
businesses.
But
Meta’s
real
concern
was
no
doubt
the
threat
to
its
own
ad
business,
which
chalked
up
a
$10
billion
dip
in
ad
revenue
in
2021
due
to
Apple’s
changes.
Targeted
ads
were
no
longer
as
effective
since
brands
no
longer
had
access
to
as
much
data,
and
they
were
becoming
more
expensive
to
boot.
As
a
consequence,
brands
cut
back
on
their
online
ad
spend.
Related
With
Advantage
Plus
shopping
campaigns,
Meta
promised
that
AI
and
machine
learning
models
could
effectively
replace
the
big
gaping
hole
left
by
Apple’s
privacy
update.
In
lieu
of
tracking
users,
Advantage
Plus
uses
the
advertiser’s
own
first-party
sales
data
to
help
target
ads.
But
online
advertisers
would
be
effectively
handing
the
reins
over
to
Meta
and
no
longer
have
access
to
the
granular
targeting
controls
and
detailed
analytics
they
did
prior
to
Apple’s
privacy
changes.
Although
there
was
a
bit
of
a
“learning
curve”
with
Advantage
Plus
shopping,
the
tool
gradually
began
to
improve.
Brands
noticed
their
AI-driven
Meta
ad
campaigns
were
performing
well
and
poured
more
of
their
budgets
into
the
platform.
Adweek
reported
that
by
April
2023,
marketers
who
had
ditched
Meta
for
TikTok
ads
and
newer
opportunities
like
connected
TV
were
starting
to
come
back.
Advertisers
had
a
honeymoon
period
with
Advantage
Plus
last
year,
especially
as
Meta
began
packing
it
with
new
features.
“Advantage
Plus
was
working
so
well
at
this
point,
for
most
of
the
clients,
that
almost
50
to
70
percent
of
their
ad
budget
is
on
Meta’s
Advantage
Plus
campaigns.
There
are
so
many
targeting
and
evolutions
they’ve
done
in
the
past
year
and
a
half.
It
delivers
a
really
strong
performance
if
you
know
how
to
tweak
the
right
parameters,”
said
Mishra.
In
an
email
to
The
Verge
on
April
15th,
Meta
spokesperson
Kash
Ayodele
said
the
company
had
fixed
a
“few
technical
issues”
with
the
Advantage
Plus
ad
platform.
“Our
ads
system
is
working
as
expected
for
the
vast
majority
of
advertisers.
We
recently
fixed
a
few
technical
issues
and
are
researching
a
small
amount
of
additional
reports
from
advertisers
to
ensure
the
best
possible
results
for
businesses
using
our
apps.”
But
marketers
are
still
complaining
about
underperformance
on
the
platform.
“Things
have
recovered
for
many,
but
not
all.
It’s
been
a
very
turbulent
end
to
Q1
and
beginning
of
Q2,”
wrote
media
buyer
David
Herrmann
in
a
direct
message
to
The
Verge.
The
dramatic
increase
in
cost
per
click
(CPC)
and
CPM
is
not
just
a
Meta
problem
—
online
ads
as
a
whole
are
getting
costlier
due
to
what
marketers
say
are
increased
inefficiencies,
which
automation
has
only
made
worse.
This
significantly
decreases
profits
for
individual
advertisers.
And
fixing
this
problem
may
be
more
complicated
than
fixing
a
“glitch”
or
series
of
glitches
on
Advantage
Plus,
especially
since
the
millions
that
Meta
as
well
as
Google
have
poured
into
automated
advertising
hasn’t
led
to
more
successful
ad
campaigns.
“The
performance
of
accounts
and
campaigns
hasn’t
intrinsically
increased
[over
the
last
three
years],”
noted
Hawke
Media’s
Areen
Mayelan.
When
ad
campaigns
are
automated,
such
as
with
Meta’s
Advantage
Plus,
“things
get
brushed
under
the
rug,”
said
Mayelan.
Everything
from
loose
keywords
to
loose
audiences
to
low-quality
ads
all
effectively
become
inefficiencies
that
increase
the
cost
of
ads
for
brands.
“Inefficiency
results
in
an
increase
in
CPCs
and
CPMs,
because
you’re
creating
artificial
‘competition’
where
there
otherwise
might
not
be.”
Meanwhile,
Meta
only
stands
to
benefit
from
the
boost
in
ad
revenue.
According
to
Meta’s
first
quarter
earnings
call
on
Wednesday,
its
ad
business
is
doing
just
fine.
Ad
revenue
amounted
to
$35.64
billion
for
the
quarter,
an
impressive
jump
of
27
percent
from
this
time
in
2023.
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