Whistleblower Alleges Meta Artificially Boosted Shops Ads Performance
3 days ago
- #Meta
- #Whistleblower
- #Advertising
- Meta allegedly inflated ROAS for Shops ads by counting shipping fees and taxes as revenue.
- A whistleblower complaint claims Meta subsidized bids and applied undisclosed discounts to boost Shops ads performance.
- The discrepancies were discovered in early 2024, with ROAS inflated by 17-19%.
- Meta's motivation was to counter Apple's 2021 privacy changes, which cost Meta $10 billion in losses.
- Shops ads kept transactions within Meta's apps, providing first-party data.
- Meta allegedly used AEM2 to bypass Apple's privacy restrictions by using personal identifiers.
- A tribunal rejected the whistleblower's request for interim relief, but the case may proceed next year.