Invisible ad on Facebook

Sorry for the long question, I just want to make sure I havent missed anything in this situation because I am confused a bit.

I have used an agency called EBS Marketing for advertising on Facebook.
Their sales speech stated that they would put an ad for me on FB for a targeted audience which will be fixed for 30 days.
So basically all ladies 25+ years old who live within 10miles of Milton Keynes should see my ad each time they login to FB.
They charged £200 for this service.

Once the ad was up and running, I created a dummy account on FB just to see the ad.
Unfortunately, the ad is not there although I am registered as some one who is a lady 25+ lives in MK.

I had a number of discussions with EBS about the missing ad and each time they tell me the ad is actually live and running.

I have talked to a number of my friends who fall under the targeted category and are registered on FB, and asked them to check whether they could see my ad.
None of them can see my ad!
I know there can be only up to 5 ads at a time on the right hand side of FB page but even if they click on "see all" which opens about 20 of them, they still cant see my ad among the others.

I keep checking this many times every single day but could never see the ad among the other ads.

I tried to complain again, but in response they sent me the statistics of the ad on a single day to prove that the ad is running. Their table shows over 5K impressions and 54 clicks on that single day.

Since a click on my FB ad links to my website, I went to my Google analytics to confirm the number of FB referrals to my website. Surprisingly it was zero on that day.

Normally an average number of visits to my website from all sources is around 40 a day. So if there were 54 visits from FB only on a single day I would definitely see a spike in that chart wouldnt I?

EBS say Google analytics is not accurate enough.
Is that true? I dont think so.

So basically I do not see any kind of evidence of my ad running.
Am I missing something?

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Hairdressers Milton Keynes

I'd do two things, in this order:-

- explain your problem and the checks you've already made to the local Trading Standards department. Ask their advice on how to check whether you're getting what you paid for and whether they have any knowledge of similar problems experienced by customers of your supplier.

If there is anything dodgy, they may follow things up themselves. As a by-product you may get your money back - if the supplier's not legit or the work they've done for you is unsatisfactory, they may hope paying you off will minimise hassle from Trading Standards.

- with a witness to hand taking notes of the conversation, tell your supplier about each of the detailed ad verification checks you've made and ask them to account for the results of these checks. Probe each apparent discrepancy until you get a satisfactory answer.

I'd suggest you act on this as fast as you can. Good luck, Linda

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Career Counselling | Graduate Careers Advice
Outplacement Support

Something sounds fishy, as you say you would see traffic from FB to your site, and it would clearly show in your Google analytics.

I only had a brief play with FB adverts a while ago, and I can't remember if you get any analytics, such as facebook insights, like you do with FB fan pages.

If there is insights, then this will clearly show clickthroughs to your site (or not). I'd be surprised if FB didn't provide any stats for their adverts

Just checked the insights analytics for our FB fan page, and compared it to google analytics, for traffic from FB to our site, and they are pretty close, so I cant see why Google Analytics wouldn't reliably track traffic from a FB ad.

You seem pretty marketing savvy Lina, I don't know why just don't run a campaign yourself.

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cheers Steve
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I could do practically, however what they sold me is a far better option. For a fixed price I was supposed to get at least 50K impressions with unlimited number of clicks.
They said from their experience I should get at least 1% of clicks which comes to 500.
If I did this myself directly with FB, I would pay per click which would result in a higher price by far.

What if I open a dispute with my credit card company?

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Hairdressers Milton Keynes

Hi guys, just to give an update on this...

I have contacted the local Trade office and they actually were quite helpful, however their help seems to be finished by the time you reached the point when you have no choice but to go to Court. Fortunately I did not need to do it.

I did the following:

Opened the formal dispute with my credit card company.
Sent quite a few emails to EBS marketing with a bunch of evidence showing that my ad is not live.
Finally I wrote a two page letter, structured it according to the local trade office's guidelines and sent it with the recorded delivery to EBS.
I then got the refund back to my credit card within 7 days.

Thank you all for your great support

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Hairdressers Milton Keynes

Great feedback Lina and glad it's worked out well for you

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cheers Steve
Forum Admin - teaboy and general gofer...

Forum Rules and FAQ's at a glance | Find me on Google+ | or even Facebook!

My Local Services - The UK and US Online Business Directory | JobsVitae - Recruitment Help and CV Creation

If you're here to spam, then expect a ban

This is really surprising! I have never heard of invisible ads before. Very frustrating. Happy to know you have finally come up with a solution.

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