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Maybe I'm cynical, but I would think this has more to do with the cost of ads going up so much. If you were already thinking of reducing spend on FB, why not get a little PR out of it?

Also, since the cost of FB ads has been going up over the last several years, that means there is no shortage of demand for ads on FB.

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Yeah, pretty much all the big DTC brands (Allbirds, Away, Warby, OV, etc.) all have retail store fronts and "showrooms" now across the US. I always just assumed if they were spending $1mm+/month on FB ads, it wasn't a very difficult decision to move $20k/month to a store in a big city and see what kind of lead gen and brand awareness that yields.

Personal anecdote - stores resulted in a much better conversion but not a huge uptick in acquisition.

Can you explain this a bit further, long tail which was better ROI

Possibly, but advertising is one of the first things companies cut in a down economy. I want to believe these companies have good intent, but it could also be construed as opportunistic: "we were already cutting our advertising budget, so this just gives us a way to capitalize."

To show they believe in what they're doing, they should donate what they would have spent on Facebook ads to causes which promote voter registration and improving minority representation in tech.

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