Email received from Facebook outlining the “bugs” in insights. Click for full view.
We’ve known that calculating reach and frequency metrics for Facebook is a tough engineering challenge, especially to do it in near real-time.
While Facebook has been vague as to which metrics are affected and to what extent, our guess is that the calculations of uniques by day and post are the main issue. Interactions, fans, and other aggregable metrics are easy to calculate– but deduping users across multiple sessions and devices is not.
Reach is really just unique impressions. And the sum of daily reach across a week is not the same as weekly reach, since people can see messages on multiple days. In the world of web analytics, we call this the non-aggregable metrics issue.
On February 25th, you can go into your analytics to see what’s changed.
Make sure you take a snapshot now, since they’re not going to keep the old, incorrect data for you.
Meanwhile, I’d rely upon
other methods to analyze Facebook data via the graph API and ads data.
Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other organizations that have many locations.
He has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs because of his partnership with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Companies like GoDaddy, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, 7 Figure Agency, and Vendasta partner with him to create training and certifications.
Dennis created the Dollar a Day Strategy for local service businesses to enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. He's coaching young adult agency owners who serve plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians in conjunction with leaders in these industries.
Mr. Yu believes that there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers need to be certified and licensed. His Content Factory training and dashboards are used by thousands of practitioners.
