[ad_1]
Original title: Trump or Biden? Facebook’s “algorithm” may have determined the result
November 3 local time is the day that United States voters vote, that is, “Election Day.” Based on past habits, the election results can be known after the vote count in each state that night.
Although many voters affected by the epidemic voted by mail, the results may be delayed, but this year’s US presidential election has entered a countdown.
In the end, who will win, it can be said that campaign publicity is a very important factor. On October 29 local time, technology survey website The Markup stated that social media Facebook accused Joseph Robinette Biden (Joe Biden) of campaign ads higher than those of Donald Trump.
To determine the audience of advertising, it is inseparable from algorithms.
Does Facebook make a “differential treatment”?
In the United States general election, there is a term called a “transition state,” which refers to a state in which both sides of the campaign are even and do not have an obvious advantage.
According to The Markup, in the changing states from July to August, Biden paid an average of $ 34 for advertising, while Trump’s average advertising fee was $ 17. In other states, Biden paid an average of $ US. 28.55 for advertising and Trump averaged $ 28.55 for advertising. The advertising fee is $ 20.35.
An example from The Markup is that in August Trump wanted to run an ad that appeared on high-level voter subscriptions in Arizona, and Facebook charged Trump’s campaign team about $ 14.
Within a few days, Biden intends to serve ads to the same audience (a plan to expand health insurance and lower drug prices), but Facebook’s bid is $ 91 per 1,000 impressions, which is 6 of Trump’s offer. More times.
However, this situation has changed since September. In September, Trump’s price advantage disappeared and the prices both parties had to pay tended to be the same; As of October, Facebook’s charge for Biden was slightly lower than Trump’s.
But overall, Biden continues to “lose.”
From July 1 to October 13, 2020, Biden’s average cost per 1,000 ads ($ 25.53) is about $ 2.5 more than Trump ($ 23.09). Biden More than $ 8 million was spent on Facebook.
How is Facebook priced?
Previously, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimated that Facebook will receive $ 420 million in advertising revenue during this presidential election cycle.
On October 29, 2020 local time, Facebook also released its earnings report for the third quarter of fiscal 2020 as of September 30.
The financial report shows that Facebook’s third quarter operating income in fiscal 2020 was $ 21.47 billion, an increase of 22% year-on-year; daily active users (DAU) were 1.82 billion.
Share of Facebook revenue 99% of the advertising business had revenues of $ 21,221 million in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 22%.
An earlier research report from investment bank Goldman Sachs showed that Facebook has more than 8 million advertisers. In July this year, due to improper monitoring of Facebook content, more than 1,000 advertisers began boycotting Facebook and stopped advertising on Facebook. Still, its advertising business continues to grow steadily, while rival Twitter’s ad revenue grew just 8% year-on-year.
In fact, if Facebook’s ad rate mechanism is placed on other media, it will be illegal. US federal law stipulates that television stations must maintain the same advertising rates for presidential candidates (of all types of advertising, the cost of campaign advertising must be the lowest); some states also prohibit the occurrence of such advertising prices.
But Lei Feng(Public account: Lei Feng Net)It should be noted that Facebook spokesperson Joe Osborne also stated that regarding the results of The Markup’s previous survey:
This reflects people’s lack of understanding of how digital advertising works. The price of the advertisement is based on the parameters set by the advertiser (such as audience, bid strategy).
But as The Markup put it, whether it’s political advertising or commercial advertising, the pricing mechanism is opaque and complicated.
Some experts say that Facebook prefers controversial content.
Specifically, the platform will allow advertisers to compete with each other, and the level of supply directly affects the effect, which means that the price of the ads that need to attract more attention will be higher.
For the two presidential candidates, the most valuable and expensive audience for advertising should be the voters who are most likely to be persuaded in the swing states.
Further,The number of audiences and the size of the audience are also the main factors that determine the price of advertising.
Markup’s analysis found that the same ad has large price differences when targeting different audiences.
An example is: Biden has a motto “High-quality, affordable healthcare is available to everyone.” In mid-September, the cost of advertising for Minnesota audiences was $ 2.3 per 1,000 impressions, the same in September. This ad was delivered to a Florida audience, but the price went up to $ 129 per 1,000 impressions.
Determining the “audience” is inseparable from the algorithm
According to The Markup, effective advertising on Facebook has become a key winning factor.
The reason is that advertisers will determine the audience when advertising, and this is also closely related to the algorithm.
Facebook algorithms are generally based on “relevance”. Facebook’s definition of “relevancy” is: a function of estimating the ad exposure ratio and judging the “quality” of the ad.
In 2012, Facebook began exploring the algorithm (The Markup called it microtargeting, which is the segmented positioning of the target).Since then, Facebook and its massive user data have become an important part of the general election strategy, placing targeted ads on voters who have yet to make a decision.
In response, former Republican political adviser Regan Opel said:
Facebook’s “list matchmaking ability” enables the candidate team to precisely and broadly reach groups that include older and suburban women.
However, ordinary voters don’t know what is in Facebook’s black box.
According to a recent NBC News poll:
In recent days, Trump’s (national voter) approval rating is 10% below Biden.
In 2016, Donald Trump scored slight victories in four key states and was elected president.
We will wait and see if Donald Trump wins after four years.
Reference source:
https://themarkup.org/elections-2020/2020/10/29 / facebook-ad-policy-price-targeting-algorithm-trump-biden
https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2020/Facebook-Reports-Third-Quarter-2020-Results/default.aspx
Reproduction of original Leifeng.com articles is not permitted without authorization. For more information, see the reprint instructions.
