Always Verify

I was reading a Business Insider article this morning about how some Facebook advertisers are planning to conduct independent audits of Facebook advertising metrics regarding reach and delivery. That is good to hear, and I hope they follow through.

It got me thinking about a recent audit we did on one of our channels, a popular software directory. It has been a solid channel for us and has provided us with a fairly consistent stream of qualified leads at an acceptable cost per lead. However, on January 1st of this year, we blew our monthly budget in one day with no conversions. Needless to say, we suspected something was awry.

We checked our analytics and confirmed that the clicks the vendor reported were valid. Average Session Duration and Page Depth was low, but not shockingly low. We dug further, however, and discovered that 95% of the clicks showed a "Time on Page" of 0:00. This was obviously a problem.

We contacted the vendor and shared our findings and our historical conversion rate. They agreed to look into the issue, and within a few days, they had refunded the entire spend. They did not provide an explanation but either they found something or just wanted to make me happy. Either way, we got the results we wanted:

1. We got our spend back
2. We made them aware that we are paying close attention.

We next reallocated the spend at a lower bid and watched closely to see if conversion rates and lead quality ticked back up to normal. Once we felt comfortable we went back to normal bidding. All is now cool.

I shared this story to remind my fellow marketers that we should always hold advertisers responsible for their metrics. I don't believe most advertisers are out there trying to defraud us but things happen. Whether it's advertiser negligence, a technical hiccup, or an overzealous competitor, vigilance and validation are essential. We should always:

• Audit advertisers' metrics against our own regularly.
• Watch for unusual fluctuations or spikes.
• Dig deep into the data when our analytics (or our guts) says something is wrong.
• Politely, but firmly, present our findings to ad reps with no accusations.
• Stick to our guns.

Data verification pushes advertiser accountability and ensures value for our spend. It should be a regular part of your marketing approach.