Facebook found itself in hot water a few days ago because of its inflated video metrics.The company apologised for miscalculating its viewership and admitted that it overstated average video view times by between 60-80%.

Since then, The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has prompted Facebook to reveal its metrics in a bid to help marketers better measure their ads on social media.

Addressing the need for such a disclosure, ANA CEO Bob Liodice on the company’s blog said, “While ANA recognises that mistakes do happen, we also recognise that Facebook has not yet achieved the level of measurement transparency that marketers need and require.”

He went on to point out that with more than US$6 billion of marketers’ media being directed to Facebook, it is time for the social media giant – and other such major media players – to be audited and accredited. He said:

That is the standard of accepted practice that marketers and agencies have relied on for decades.

In the backdrop of this crucial situation where marketers all across the globe seem to be affected in one way or the other, Marketing spoke to a few industry players to gauge the response ANA’s demand has generated.

Agreeing with Liodice was Phil Townend chief commercial officer, Unruly APAC. He said an audit must be demanded so that the historic data can be recalculated to enable marketers to make better decisions about future investment levels – and be aware of Facebook’s return on investment.

“Trillions of paid advertiser views globally have been the subject to miscalculation of some form. If a user has spent 60-80% less time on an ad as against what the agencies have calculated, multi-million dollar planned media investments can been skewed in a big way,” explained Phil Townend chief commercial officer, Unruly APAC.

In agreement with Townend’s opinion on the fact Facebook’s metrics must be audited, as it is a dominant player in the social media arena is Ryan Lim, Founder of QED Consulting. He explained that legal and ethical measures form the core of this need for disclosure.He added:

While legally Facebook may choose not to put the data out on the public platform, there needs to be some form of liquidity on the ethical front, without which marketers can be easily misguided.

Another digital agency lead who spoke to Marketing on grounds on anonymity strongly suggested that there needs to be a common unit of measurement across all public platforms.

Marketers need something concrete so as to not be conned in their spends. With the issue of inflation of video views coming forth, it is a tough time for marketers,” he said.