GigaOM Pro

This is not the Wall Street Journal headline you want to see a few days before your IPO: “GM Says Facebook Ads Don’t Pay Off.” GM says it’s taking its $10 million in Facebook spending elsewhere. It will still spend $30 million on its Facebook pages, but Facebook doesn’t get any of that spend. In contrast Ford says it’s happy with its Facebook spending. And GM has fired several of its ad agencies, and might just have mis-executed its social media campaigns. Forrester’s Nate Elliott thinks Facebook needs to take marketing seriously and advocates that it buy an ad exchange or invest in analytics. He’s harsher on new initiative that I thought showed a little responsiveness – finally – to traditional advertiser demands. Facebook is still too focused on re-inventing marketing with social media, rather than offering easier near-term solutions. It should double down on paying for research that “proves” effectiveness with traditional brand metrics. Not click-throughs, but real media mix analysis: raising awareness and consideration with pre- and post-campaign testing.