Limited Run Start-Up To Leave Facebook After 80% Of Ad Clicks 'Found To Be Bots'

Start-Up To Leave Facebook After 80% Of Ad Clicks 'Found To Be Bots'

An American start-up says it will delete its Facebook page after it found 80% of the clicks on its ads were made by automated bots.

Limited Run, which helps musicians and artists build shots to sell their work online, said Facebook were "scumbags".

They alleged that Facebook noticed "strange things" on its page months ago but had not explained them.

Writing, ironically, on its Facebook page, Limited Run said: "Facebook was charging us for clicks, yet we could only verify about 20% of them actually showing up on our site.

"At first, we thought it was our analytics service. We tried signing up for a handful of other big name companies, and still, we couldn't verify more than 15-20% of clicks."

To check the stats Limited Run said they built their own analytic software, and found 80% of the users clicking on the ads didn't use JavaScript.

After investigating further, they said they found that 80% of the clicks where made by bots.

"That's correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs. So we tried contacting Facebook about this. Unfortunately, they wouldn't reply.

"Do we know who the bots belong too? No. Are we accusing Facebook of using bots to drive up advertising revenue. No. Is it strange? Yes. But let's move on, because who the bots belong to isn't provable."

The company also alleged that Facebook demanded an increase in their ad spend per month of $2000 in order for them to change their page name from 'Limited Pressing' to 'Limited Run'.

"Damn we were so pissed," they said.

"We still are. This is why we need to delete this page and move away from Facebook. They're scumbags and we just don't have the patience for scumbags."

Facebook told the Huffington Post UK:

“We're currently investigating their claims. For their issue with the Page name change, there seems to be some sort of miscommunication. We do not charge Pages to have their names changed. Our team is reaching out about this now.”

No wrongdoing has been proven, and Limited Run admit that they cannot prove who or what are behind the unexplained clicks.

Meanwhile Facebook's stock fell to a new low on Tuesday, as its share price lost 6.2% of its value.

Its stock traded at $21.71, down more than 42% of its value since it went public at $38 per share in May.

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