Facebook has long been a go-to advertising platform for e-commerce brands wishing to reach new customers. However, new data surrounding last year’s Facebook ad boycott by companies frustrated with the platform’s handling of hate speech suggests it may not be as influential as previously thought.
Market research company Forrester8 examined 43 publicly traded companies that participated in the boycott last summer and found that in most cases, withdrawing advertising did not have a negative effect on sales. Only seven saw their revenue decrease in the third quarter as compared to Q2, whilst the other 36 companies' revenue increased quarter to quarter.
Sucharita Kodali, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, suggested that whilst advertising on Facebook has the “veneer of being cost effective” for e-commerce brands, "to this day, very few people have dissected what is truly incremental,”9 meaning Facebook advertising gets credit for online transactions that would have happened anyway.