Advertising executives' suspicions were confirmed during a recent Meta Day in Slovenia. I've been using Meta for advertising for my clients for years and was tired of the frequent bugs and lack of proper compensation for advertising overspend. The apathy was evident at the event, where they and others voiced their frustrations to Meta's CEE country director, Robert Bednarski. What was his reaction? They are dumbfounded and have no choice: “Employ the meta or die.'' Although Meta refuted this.
Still, for the advertisers on the receiving end, this is the most direct response yet to the ongoing issues plaguing them.
For example, Max Langlois, founder and CEO of performance marketing agency Hype10, said it usually resembles a round trip.
An honest reality check doesn't make it any easier for advertisers to address these issues. In fact, it makes it even more frustrating.
“It's very frustrating because you have to notify the client that there's a problem and then have to explain to Meta's representative that you're seeking compensation from Meta for overspending,” Langlois explained. . “But what ends up happening is you don't actually hear anything.” [back from Meta] about it. “
For some advertisers, the silence from Meta may feel like a blessing. Particularly if you get a response from a social network, they tend to give you a credit for the financial loss caused by the bug, rather than an actual refund. And the losses can be staggering.
When Langlois and his team were hit by one of the recent bugs on February 14th, they had to adjust the ad budgets of 30 of the 37 advertisers they manage. . During the outage, CPMs spiked from an average of 15 to 150 in about an hour, causing major disruption.
“The reach was similar, but the CPM was so high that we were basically being charged 10 times more for that hour than a standard delivery hour,” Langlois added.
As it turns out, his meta guy warned him that there was a server-side bug that was causing over-delivery, and it was fixed by the next day. However, since then, there has been no official communication from Meta regarding this issue. Instead, communication often comes from frustrated advertising professionals discussing their grievances on public platforms such as his X (formerly Twitter).
“Unfortunately, Meta has proven time and time again that it probably isn't the right thing to do for advertisers or small businesses in this scenario,” Langlois explained. “Don't get me wrong, Meta is a great tool. I owe my job and business to this advertising platform. But there are a lot of inefficiencies in the current system.”
The current situation is so bad that advertisers can't remember a time when it was this bad to run ads on the platform. Previously, bugs occurred less frequently and were resolved more quickly. Currently, it can take several weeks to properly address them.
“Meta advertising has been a mess since September 2023, and Q1 2024 was the worst in my five-year experience,” said Rock Hladnik, managing partner at Flat Circle Agency. said.
Hradnik explained that he started noticing performance issues and instability in September. But since January, his team has been dealing with endless bugs. “The overspending, undersizing, and mistakes were horrendous, multiple times each month.”
Like Langlois, Hladnik noticed that Meta's client support managers weren't finding solutions. “It's had a huge impact on our relationship with Meta,” he said. “We have him working with four different meta offices. [globally]And Europeans are even more ignorant. [about what is going on] than the American one.”
These marketers are caught in a catch-22. Thanks to its ubiquitous reach, Meta is widely recognized as the most efficient advertising platform with the highest ROI. However, as the platform continues to grow, so do bugs, and advertising in the meta is riddled with bugs. Advertising executives are reaching a critical point of dissatisfaction, and their patience is running thin.
Regarding the bugs in Meta's advertising platform, a spokesperson for the social network told Digiday: We've recently fixed some technical issues and are investigating a small amount of additional reporting from advertisers to ensure we provide the best possible results for businesses using our app. ”
Still, a growing number of marketers are no longer willing to spend more money on the meta, and some are considering alternatives. Yes, this isn't something meta advertising leaders haven't heard many times over the past decade, but usually from large advertisers who make up a small portion of the advertising business. Currently, these threats are being perpetrated by smaller, but potentially more important, advertisers.
For example, Selom Agbitor, co-founder of tattoo skincare brand Mad Rabbit, shares a similar experience with Langlois and Hladnik.he explained (without giving exact figures) He says his team has reduced spending on meta by about 20% to 25% so far, and it hasn't affected revenue as much as expected. If anything, this move reinforced the idea of not being too dependent on any particular platform.
“It helped us have a testing budget to look at other channels and see what else would work just in case. [have to] You lose the meta forever,” Agbiter said. Other test channels include YouTube, TikTok, podcasts, and even CTV, where the brand is now increasing its retail presence.
Advertisers won't suddenly cut their advertising budgets in protest of these bugs. Meta advertising has too much value (at least for now) to take such drastic action. However, many people may choose to increase their spending more carefully in the future.
For Hradnik, most U.S. customers are still spending more on meth than they did last year. But for new customers, some are down 30%, while others are down to zero. He cautioned that macroeconomic factors and Chinese competitors are likely to be more damaging to brands in Europe than in the US, which is an additional factor.
And it's not just small brands and agency executives who are reevaluating their options. Holding companies are also starting to review their holding companies.
“From our perspective, there are big questions as to whether that is the case. [Meta dominating social spend] Is it justified or is it laziness by default,” one ad executive told Digiday candidly on condition of anonymity. “The whole industry wants to diversify. There's no question about that. The question is whether people will take the plunge and we're looking at what approach to take. This is where I am.
“If there is performance, at the end of the day our first duty is to spend the most money for our client. I think it's about making sure you're doing what you're supposed to do.”
Simply put, in the eyes of advertisers, Meta is profiting from these bugs and is simply guilty of providing the platform equivalent of a gift card.
However, independent analyst and investor Eric Souffer disagreed. Posted Regarding the media headlines these bugs brought to X. “DTC marketing teams see declining return on ad spend (ROAS) and blame systemic flaws that lead to long-term platform abandonment and spend diversification. As ROAS improves, they receive raises. ” he said.
