Meta experienced a strange glitch last weekend that forced advertisers to spend as much as twice the usual ad rates, with some being charged as high as hundreds of thousands. This glitch affected advertisers, mostly from Facebook and some from Instagram.
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The logo for Meta (formerly Facebook) is seen on a sign at the company's corporate headquarters location in Menlo Park, California on November 9, 2022. - Facebook owner Meta will lay off more than 11,000 of its staff in "the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history," boss Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.
Experiencing Glitch
The advertising system of Meta suffered its first major glitch in over a decade, overcharging its customers and wasting money on advertisements that did not process or work. According to a report from Gizmodo, advertisers were charged more than double what they agreed to pay, ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars.
During the glitch, Meta stopped showing ads on part of its network, showing no communication to its millions of customers who paid beyond the limits they had set for certain campaigns. Some experienced the system eating up entire advertising budgets in a span of hours.
Marketers were left with a difficult decision as they receive no word from the company. They either paused their ad campaigns or trusted Meta's response to this problem. While this may be a small amount for large companies and consider it a no-big-deal situation, millions of small businesses depend on Meta's ad network, with some of them operating on small margins.
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CNBC reported that advertisers called this glitch Facebook's worst in the decade. Intensify Chief Executive Officer Alex Golick stated, "The results were horrendous. It's the biggest malfunction I've ever seen on Facebook ads."
Upon checking his company's ad campaign, he notice that it had spent 90% of its daily Facebook budget in the morning, with only 10% remaining for the next 15 hours of the day. Golick, along with advertisers, wasted their money for a day and spent roughly triple the amount.
Meta's Response
While the company did not communicate with the affected advertisers during the incident, Meta confirmed the glitch hours after but shared very little information regarding this matter. The glitch primarily resulted in some miscalibration for advertising campaigns, focused on optimizing certain sales objectives.
As per Meta's spokesperson, this led to causing advertisers sending faster campaigns with more variable costs. As of the moment, Phone Arena reported that no evidence was presented by the company that they have charged for ads that no one saw. Advertisers would not be charged if no impression occurred.
Refund Process
Aside from confirming the glitch hours after, Meta initiated its normal refund policies for its affected advertisers. But Advertising Consultant Barry Holt stated this would not be a quick, smooth, and painless process. "You can burn hours and resources complaining and begging them for refunds and credits. Sometimes it works, but it may not be worth the investment," he added.
He also criticized Meta for not explaining the situation on why this happened by describing the company as "always has been extremely opaque." For them, they have been receiving generic explantation and awareness of the issue. While this is better than nothing, it is not enough for them as they were heavily affected.
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