Facebook is set to refund some advertisers after billing them incorrectly when users clicked on videos in a carousel ad unit.
According to cnn money, the error is said to have been limited to those checking Facebook through their smartphone web browser, as opposed to the app. Facebook says the bug only impacted 0.04 per cent of ad impressions.
“Regardless of how many impressions were affected, we take all bugs seriously and apologise for any inconvenience this has caused,” the company wrote in a blog post.
A source familiar with the matter said the bug overcharged advertisers a median amount of $10 over the course of a year. It was unclear how many advertisers were affected.
It’s just the latest in a growing list of ad measurement mistakes revealed by Facebook since last September. This issue once again threatens to unnerve the advertisers who fuel its core business.
“At this point, they’ve made so many of these disclosures around so many of their products you have to wonder if there is anything left they can screw up,” says Paul Verna, an analyst with eMarketer.
Facebook previously admitted to miscalculating the average time users spend watching videos and the number of completed video views.
It has also “over-reported” average time spent on Instant Articles. After these earlier mistakes, Facebook expanded its partnerships with third-party measurement services to ease advertiser concerns.
“We know that measurement is important to building advertiser trust,” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said on an earnings call with analysts in February. “We’re going to continue to invest in measurement, including third-party partnerships, in the upcoming year.”
So far, the issue doesn’t seem to have impacted Facebook’s bottom line. Facebook’s ad sales, which account for nearly all of its overall revenue, hit $7.85 billion in the most recent quarter. That’s up more than 50 per cent from the same period a year earlier.
