Facebook takes steps to improve advertising data

Facebook said Friday that it will agree to an audit of information it provides to marketers and provide them with new, more precise measurement data, less than two weeks after Procter & Gamble, the biggest U.S. advertiser, criticized the lack of transparency provided by digital ad marketplaces.

The Menlo Park social network, which came under scrutiny last year for repeated inaccuracies in its tools for measuring ads, also said that it will give marketers new options for buying video ads this year.

The nonprofit Media Rating Council will conduct an audit to “verify the accuracy of the information” Facebook gives marketers, the company said in a blog post, adding that it is also working with 24 third-party measurement companies.

Facebook announced the changes after Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer at Procter & Gamble, demanded that the digital ad industry “grow up,” criticizing the different ways marketplaces, including Facebook and YouTube, define whether an ad has been viewed and the lack of accredited outside sources used to measure digital ad performance.

“We spend enormous amounts of time trying to understand, analyze and explain the differences between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Pandora, YouTube, and the dozens of different viewability standards claimed to be right metric for each platform,” Pritchard said, according to a copy of his remarks given to the New York Times.