The only reason (yes I asked) Facebook continued to allow these studies was because Google did even worse.
I wonder if all this stuff ever got published.
Never heard anything in the press, so I am guessing Facebook eventually pulled the plug. I wonder if I saved the drafts tho :>
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/advertising-part-2/
One thing I was hoping they'd explore was whether any of the recent companies that participated in the fb ad boycott realized afterward that the advertising dollars were not really working for them.
Apparently - I did a quick search - conversion rate at facebook is said to be on average up to 9% (in marketing materials) or around 4-5%.
In this study, the authors show conversion rate consistently sub 1%, which is however not the point of the article. Rather, they also show that the lift in conversion (so the actual impact of the ad) as calculated by observational measures usually over-estimates the actual lift (sometimes significantly). Observational measures were those used by advertisers on facebook - maybe even now?
The more snarky comments from the presentation are missing from the draft, of course.