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from the all-the-ones-that-are-not-dead-yet? dept.
How many 18-34 year old people live in the US?
Facebook tells advertisers that they can reach up to 41 million users in the 18-24 age bracket. Sounds reasonable... However, one stock analyst (who unlike most analysts, has a "SELL" rating for Facebook shares) noticed that there are only 31 million people in the country in that age bracket (according to the Census Bureau.)
On the one hand, the Census Bureau has decades of experience coming up with scientifically accurate population estimates based on birth and death rates, immigration rates, representative surveys, and even literally going door to door and counting people.
On the other hand, Facebook data is both specific and granular. Users provide their birthdays, and Facebook captures where you log in from. So the company knows if you’re inside the boundaries of the U.S., and it knows how old you are.
Of course, in the advertising world, if a person doesn't exist how can you reach them?
Also reported by Reuters
Facebook Offering Access to more US Customers Than Actually Exist (Claims Analyst)
Spotted on The Register is an article on claims about the unreliability of Facebook's advertising statistics:
Facebook has an extensive and sophisticated ad-buying system that assures potential advertisers it can reach no fewer than 41 million of a core target group of 18 to 24-year-olds in the United States.
The only problem, analyst Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group pointed out in a note to customers, is that there are only 31 million of them that actually exist in the US, according to the official census data. The same gap in reality also holds for other groups, including the next most-targeted group of 25 to 34-year-olds.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday September 09 2017, @06:46PM (1 child)
How does the company know you are the boundaries of the U.S again? VPN services exist, and geolocation isn't perfect. It's how old people claim they are, and where Facebook *supposes* they are. None of it is remotely as credible as Census data. At least that's a physical person showing up.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday September 10 2017, @08:13AM
Of course the question is which is more interesting to the advertisers: Your true age (which basically says how much time passed since your birth), or your felt age (which determines your consumption habits)?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.