OKO Digital

The ad optimisation people

  • Home
  • Publisher Solutions
    • Website Monetization
    • Header Bidding
    • AdX – Google Ad Exchange
    • App Ad Monetization
    • WordPress Monetization
  • About us
    • OKO & the OKO team
    • Careers
  • Blog
    • Latest blog posts
    • Ad Blocking
    • Ad Exchange (AdX)
    • Ad Optimisation
    • Ad Performance & Page Speed
    • Ad Publishing Landscape
    • AdSense
    • DoubleClick For Publishers (DFP)
    • Exchange Bidding
    • Google Ad Manager
    • Google Certified Publishing Partners
    • Header Bidding
    • Privacy & GDPR
    • Program Policy
    • Open Bidding
    • Traffic
  • Contact

Traffic . 18th May 2017

Facebook takes on “financially-motivated spammers”

The last few years has seen Facebook become the favourite playground for ad arbitrage, and it seems that Facebook have had enough. On May 10th Facebook announced that they had begun rolling out changes that will devalue posts that link to “low quality web page experiences”. The statement came in a press release that framed quality as being very closely related to ad monetization; something that will be of interest to many web publishers.

What is ad arbitrage, and why is it frowned on?

Ad arbitrage is the process of buying cheap clicks to ad monetised sites to make a margin between buy and sell price. It isn’t easy to get right, but can result in fast, significant revenues when it is.  One of the main problems with ad arbitrage is that it can lead to very aggressively monetized sites that care little for user experience.

What sort of pages will be devalued?

Facebook say that they reviewed hundreds of thousands of links pages that had been linked from Facebook to identify those that “contain little substantive content and have a large number of disruptive, shocking or malicious ads”. These pages were given to their Artificial Intelligence system to find factors that are more common in those low-quality pages than would be expected in a more representative example.

This means that we don’t know what criteria will be used other than to say that pages that are like bad ones are likely to be affected. Based on their description we could assume that low content levels, malware, overly aggressive ad placement and inclusion low-quality ad networks are likely to be triggers, but the actual factors will be more complex.

What will the effect of devaluing be?

Pages identified as being low-quality in this manner will appear lower in people’s Facebook feeds. Some sources have suggested that this will only affect paid placements, not Facebook organic traffic, but the release seems to contradict that idea. We expect it to impact both.

Facebook have also said that some pages may not be eligible for paid promotion. This would seem to offer the opportunity to better understand the criteria that is being applied.

Why is Facebook cracking down on this?

On the face of it this might seem like a bad move for Facebook. Many of those clicks are paid, so removing those means fewer add-dollars for Facebook. There are several possible answers to this and every pundit will have their favourite. The truth is probably a combination of a few of these points.

User experience: Facebook feeds can get overrun with links to low quality sites. This doesn’t encourage users to spend more time on Facebook.

Fake news: Facebook is under a lot of pressure to deal with fake news. Sensational fake news is a favourite tactic for arbitrage as the viral lift leads to cheap traffic.

To keep users in the Facebook walled garden: Facebook isn’t that keen on links at all. Even with opening links in the in-app browser, they would rather keep users where they are earning money for Facebook not in the “wild” of the open web.

To hurt Google (and others): Facebook are, amongst other things, an ad network. Removing revenue from other ad networks improves their position.

To pave the way for their own content recommendation ads: This seems like an idea born from under a tin-foil hat, but there has long been talk of Facebook launching their own paid content-recommendation ads. This latest announcement seems particularly focused on the “eye-popping” content recommendation ads that we all know, so this might not be as out-there as it sounds.

What can publishers do?

Publishers who rely on Facebook traffic will be understandably concerned by such an announcement. Those running aggressive arbitrage may well soon be reeling from a “double-punch” with Google also seemingly starting to enforce their “no more ads than content” rules. But publishers taking a more balanced approach are likely to have concerns too.

The update is apparently being rolled out gradually. This might make changes harder to spot, but also gives publishers time to adapt if they need to. We advise keeping a close eye on post reach and potentially testing less aggressively monetized posts as a comparison if you believe you might be at risk.

OKO offer publishers support with testing, accurate measurement and sustainable website monetization and more. Find out more about how working with OKO might benefit you.

Traffic . Publisher News

About Abbey Colville

SEARCH

TOPICS

  • Ad Blocking
  • Ad Exchange (AdX)
  • Ad Optimisation
  • Ad Performance & Page Speed
  • Ad Publishing Landscape
  • AdSense
  • DoubleClick For Publishers (DFP)
  • Exchange Bidding
  • Google Ad Manager
  • Google Certified Publishing Partners
  • Header Bidding
  • Open Bidding
  • Privacy & GDPR
  • Program Policy
  • Traffic

Could the ads on your site be earning more?

Find out how OKO help publishers earn more from their ads.

LEARN MORE
Insticator

OKO Digital, The Cake Shed, Manor Farm, Manor Road, Hayling Island, Hampshire, PO11 0QW

Google Certified Publisher Partner Logo

OKO is a registered trademark and trading style of OKO Digital Limited. Registered in England company number 03867231. © OKO Digital Limited 1996-2018. All Rights Reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimise our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}