Ad Age Survey: Marketers Love Facebook, But Many Have No Idea If Their Ads Work

Eric Johnson, CEO of Los Angeles-based agency Ignited, said clients are experimenting with Facebook and in some cases upping their investment on it, they're certainly not dumping their TV budgets into it. Or even their budgets for other digital-media platforms, where the value of clicks and video views is more proven. "The metrics [on Facebook] are not screaming that you have to go and change your budget," he said. Respondents also said doing business with Facebook isn't always easy. About 24% of respondents said Facebook's advertising-customer support was inferior to other digital platforms; only 7% said it was superior. Asked what it would take to make Facebook a more useful ad platform, one said, "It's incredibly time consuming and requires a lot of manual entry. Our agency has tried to optimize by working directly with Facebook but found they were unhelpful and lacked the knowledge to move our projects forward." And another: "Better analytics and better customer support, like Google's AdWords." Some questioned the notion of ads on Facebook altogether: "I do not believe that Facebook is an advertising platform. We need to explore other possibilities." But one of the most widespread criticisms of Facebook -- that it doesn't provide adequate data to marketers -- may be overstated. In written comments, several respondents cited data as a key issue holding back budgets. Several gave variations on the simple response of one commenter: "DATA." Yet asked if they were satisfied with the level of data returned by Facebook, 61% said "somewhat satisfied" and 10% said "very satisfied," a majority. Marketers also expressed strong interest in buying mobile on Facebook, with nearly 28% calling it "very important" and 36 % "somewhat important" as a marketing channel. The full results of the survey will be available in Ad Age 's DataCenter in the coming days.

Ad Age Survey: Marketers Love Facebook, But Many Have No Idea If Their Ads Work

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