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Subject:

Facebook recently introduced a new bidding system called "average bidding"(test group) alongside the existing "maximum bidding"(control group) system. These bidding systems determine which ads get displayed to users based on how much advertisers are willing to pay.

With "maximum bidding," advertisers specify the maximum amount they are willing to pay for each impression. For example, an advertiser might say, "I'm willing to pay a maximum of $10 for each impression."

With "average bidding," advertisers specify an average amount they are willing to pay for impressions. For instance, they might say, "On average, I'm willing to pay $6 for each impression."

Here's the key point: In this dataset, we've gathered the results of these two bidding strategies over the last 40 days to see which one is more effective at getting their ads displayed to the target audience.

Business Challenge: Unleashing the Power of Facebook Advertising

As a forward-thinking company poised to make waves in the realm of Facebook advertising, we're on a mission to unearth the most advantageous approach for our brand. Our burning questions:

1. Maximize Clicks and Purchases: Which strategy will propel us toward our goal of skyrocketing clicks and driving purchases?
2. Battle of Titans: Is there a discernible and statistically significant difference between the two bidding options?

Enter the AB Test: Today, we embark on a journey of data-driven discovery, where the clash of titans—Average Bidding versus Maximum Bidding—will be meticulously dissected and evaluated. We're on a quest for insights that will define our Facebook advertising strategy's future, using data as our compass and innovation as our weapon.

The outcome of this AB Test will not just answer our questions but will be the harbinger of a glorious era in our Facebook advertising endeavors. Stay tuned for a transformation that will leave a mark on the digital advertising landscape.

Features:

• Impression: Number of impressions per ad.
• Click: Numbers of clicks per ad.
• Purchase: The number of products purchased after the click.
• Earnings: Earning after purchase.

The global number of Facebook users was forecast to continuously increase between 2023 and 2027 by in total 391 million users (+14.36 percent). After the fourth consecutive increasing year, the Facebook user base is estimated to reach 3.1 billion users and therefore a new peak in 2027. Notably, the number of Facebook users was continuously increasing over the past years. User figures, shown here regarding the platform Facebook, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

Which county has the most Facebook users?

              There are more than 378 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 193.8 million, 119.05 million, and 112.55 million Facebook users respectively.

              Facebook – the most used social media

              Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3,5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising.

              Facebook usage by device
              As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

Dataset

This dataset was created by Oliver S

Contents

As of April 2024, Facebook had an addressable ad audience reach 131.1 percent in Libya, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 120.5 percent and Mongolia with 116 percent. Additionally, the Philippines and Qatar had addressable ad audiences of 114.5 percent and 111.7 percent.

As of April 2024, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook largest audience, accounting for 18.4 percent of global users. Additionally, Facebook's second largest audience base could be found with men aged 18 to 24 years.

              Facebook connects the world

              Founded in 2004 and going public in 2012, Facebook is one of the biggest internet companies in the world with influence that goes beyond social media. It is widely considered as one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple, and Amazon (all together known under the acronym GAFA). Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide and the company also owns three other billion-user properties: mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger,
              as well as photo-sharing app Instagram. Facebook usersThe vast majority of Facebook users connect to the social network via mobile devices. This is unsurprising, as Facebook has many users in mobile-first online markets. Currently, India ranks first in terms of Facebook audience size with 378 million users. The United States, Brazil, and Indonesia also all have more than 100 million Facebook users each.

Please refer to the "README.rtf" and "Data Details for Replication.pdf" files.Paper AbstractSocial media platforms have become vital channels for businesses to reach consumers through advertising. But in the U.S., the digital advertising market in which these platforms operate is dominated by a few major players, raising concerns for antitrust regulators. In such a concentrated market, the entry or exit of a single platform can reallocate billions in ad spending, affecting businesses and users. TikTok's temporary suspension in the U.S. in January 2025 provides a unique natural experiment to examine how the removal of a major player would shift advertising demand and supply on competitors, specifically Facebook and Instagram, revealing the degree of substitutability across platforms and the intensity of competition. Using a difference-in-differences approach comparing advertising activity in the U.S. to other countries, we find that Meta ad volume and spend rose by 6.3% and 22.4%, as a result of the outage, without a corresponding increase in ad impressions. Consequently, Meta ad prices, as measured by cost per thousand impressions, jumped by 12.1%. Shifts in demand were three times greater for larger advertisers relative to smaller ones, suggesting that Meta platforms and TikTok are closer substitutes for larger firms and that a TikTok ban would therefore impose greater challenges on smaller businesses.

With the phone book era far in the past, database and directory publishers have been forced to transform their business approach, focusing on their digital presence. Despite many publishers rapidly moving away from print services, they are experiencing immovable competition from online search engines and social media platforms within the digital space, negatively affecting revenue growth potential. Industry revenue has been eroding at a CAGR of 4.4% over the past five years and in 2024, a 3.9% drop has led to the industry revenue totaling $4.4 billion. Profit continues to drop in line with revenue, accounting for 4.7% of revenue as publishers invest more in their digital platforms. Interest in printed directories has disappeared as institutional clients and consumers have continued their shift to convenient online resources. Declining demand for print advertising has curbed revenue growth and online revenue has only slightly mitigated this downturn. Though many traditional publishers, such as Yellow Pages, now operate under parent companies with digital resources, directory publishers remain low on the list of options businesses have to choose from in digital advertising. Due to the convenience and connectivity that Facebook and Google services offer, traditional directory publishers have a limited ability to compete. Many providers have rebranded and tailored their services toward client needs, though these efforts have only had a marginal impact on revenue growth. The industry is forecast to decline at an accelerated CAGR of 5.2% over the next five years, reaching an estimated $3.4 billion in 2029, as businesses and consumers continually turn to digital alternatives for information and advertising opportunities. As AI and digital technology innovation expands, social media company products will likely improve at a faster rate than the digital offerings that directory publishers can provide. Though these companies will seek external partnerships to cut costs, they face an uphill battle to boost their visibility and reverse consumer habit trends.

Context

Cluster Analysis for Ad Conversions Data

Content

The data used in this project is from an anonymous organisation’s social media ad campaign. The data file can be downloaded from here. The file conversion_data.csv contains 1143 observations in 11 variables. Below are the descriptions of the variables.

1.) ad_id: an unique ID for each ad.

2.) xyz_campaign_id: an ID associated with each ad campaign of XYZ company.

3.) fb_campaign_id: an ID associated with how Facebook tracks each campaign.

4.) age: age of the person to whom the ad is shown.

5.) gender: gender of the person to whim the add is shown

6.) interest: a code specifying the category to which the person’s interest belongs (interests are as mentioned in the person’s Facebook public profile).

7.) Impressions: the number of times the ad was shown.

8.) Clicks: number of clicks on for that ad.

9.) Spent: Amount paid by company xyz to Facebook, to show that ad.

10.) Total conversion: Total number of people who enquired about the product after seeing the ad.

11.) Approved conversion: Total number of people who bought the product after seeing the ad.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Anonymous data depositor

Inspiration

Social Media Ad Campaign marketing is a leading source of Sales Conversion and i have made this data available for the benefit of Businesses using Google Adwords to track Conversions

Facebook received 73,390 user data requests from federal agencies and courts in the United States during the second half of 2023. The social network produced some user data in 88.84 percent of requests from U.S. federal authorities. The United States accounts for the largest share of Facebook user data requests worldwide.

Contacts Dataset The Contacts dataset simulates a list of individual contacts with detailed personal and contact information, useful for representing a customer database:

ID: A unique identifier for each contact, generated as a UUID. Email: A randomly generated realistic email address. Country: Randomly chosen from a list of six countries (France, US, UK, Germany, Portugal, China), represented by their respective codes. City: A random city, ideally from the chosen country, although this script uses a random city generator without specific country linkage for simplicity. Phone: A randomly generated phone number, which should ideally include the country prefix (not implemented in this simple version). Firstname: A randomly generated first name. Birthdate: A randomly generated birth date for each contact, ranging from 1930 to 2008, making the age of contacts between 15 and 93. Postal Code: A postal code corresponding to the randomly chosen city. Acquisition Source: The source through which the contact was acquired, chosen randomly from options like Facebook ad, Google ad, promotional email, or a birthday mail campaign. Created At: The timestamp when the contact record was created, ranging from 2019 to the present. Updated At: The timestamp of the last update to the contact record, which is any time between the creation date and the current date.

Products Dataset The Products dataset simulates an inventory of items that might be sold by a company:

ID: A unique identifier for each product, generated as a UUID. SKU: A unique Stock Keeping Unit code for each product. Categories: A list of categories assigned to each product, chosen from predefined options like Electronics, Clothing, Home, Toys, Books. Each product can belong to multiple categories. Price: A randomly generated price for each product, ranging from $10 to $500. Name: A randomly generated name for the product. Description: A short description for the product, generated randomly. Parent ID: The ID of a parent product if the current product is a variant; this is left blank in the script for simplicity. URL: A fake URL simulating a product page on an e-commerce site. Image URL: A fake URL for the product’s image. Brand: The brand of the product, either randomly selected from a list or generated. Created At: The timestamp when the product record was created, within the last two years. Modified At: The timestamp of the last update to the product record.

Stores Dataset The Stores dataset represents physical or conceptual locations where the company operates:

ID: A unique identifier for each store, generated as a UUID. Name: The name of the store, generated by appending "Store" to a randomly generated company name. City: The city where the store is located, chosen randomly. Country: The country where the store is located, chosen randomly. Postal Code: A postal code for the store, generated randomly. Created At: The timestamp when the store record was created, within the last two years. Modified At: The timestamp of the last update to the store record.

These datasets can be used individually or combined to simulate real-world business applications like customer relationship management, inventory tracking, and retail operations. If you need these datasets linked (e.g., linking products to stores, or contacts to purchases), additional scripting would be needed to establish these relationships within the data.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, around 86 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 79 and 65 percent of the respondents.

              The global social media marketing segment

              According to the same study, 59 percent of responding marketers intended to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes throughout that year. LinkedIn and Instagram followed with similar shares, rounding up the top three social media platforms attracting a planned growth in organic use among global marketers in 2024. Their main driver is increasing brand exposure and traffic, which led the ranking of benefits of social media marketing worldwide.

              Social media for B2B marketing

              Social media platform adoption rates among business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers vary according to each subsegment's focus. While B2C professionals prioritize Facebook and Instagram – both run by Meta, Inc. – due to their popularity among online audiences, B2B marketers concentrate their endeavors on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn due to its goal to connect people and companies in a corporate context.

Current-Deferred-Revenue Time Series for GMO Payment Gateway Inc. GMO Payment Gateway, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides payment related and financial services in Japan and internationally. The company offers online payment system, such as PG multi-payment service, a payment system that allows to select payment methods, such as credit card, carrier, bank transfer, payment after delivery, and CVS payment services; Ginko Pay Base System, a smartphone app that enables payments to be made by an immediate debit from the bank account; and GMO-PG processing platform, which helps financial institutions and financial service providers in the business of payment-related services by enabling payment infrastructure building. It also provides face to face use services, including cashless platform, infrastructure of payment, and cooperation; pay payer system, such as paypay, d payment, Rakuten pay online payment, amazon pay, merpay, and AEON pay services; and business to business and buy now pay later services. In addition, the company offers payment agency services in the online and recurring billing, and face-to-face field; banking as a service; lending; remittance; and instant salary receipt services. Further, it provides marketing support services for listing ads that use Yahoo! Promotional advertising, and Google AdWords; and administrative services for Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, etc. Additionally, the company offers website analysis support, consulting, and other support services. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.

How many people use social media?

              Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2024, over five billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over six billion in 2028.

              Who uses social media?
              Social networking is one of the most popular digital activities worldwide and it is no surprise that social networking penetration across all regions is constantly increasing. As of January 2023, the global social media usage rate stood at 59 percent. This figure is anticipated to grow as lesser developed digital markets catch up with other regions
              when it comes to infrastructure development and the availability of cheap mobile devices. In fact, most of social media’s global growth is driven by the increasing usage of mobile devices. Mobile-first market Eastern Asia topped the global ranking of mobile social networking penetration, followed by established digital powerhouses such as the Americas and Northern Europe.

              How much time do people spend on social media?
              Social media is an integral part of daily internet usage. On average, internet users spend 151 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, an increase of 40 minutes since 2015. On average, internet users in Latin America had the highest average time spent per day on social media.

              What are the most popular social media platforms?
              Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately 2.9 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide. In June 2023, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, approximately 83 percent selected increased exposure as a benefit of social media marketing. Increased traffic followed, mentioned by 73 percent of the respondents, while 65 percent cited generated leads.

              The multibillion-dollar social media ad industry

              Between 2019 – the last year before the pandemic – and 2024, global social media advertising spending skyrocketed by 140 percent, surpassing an estimated 230 billion U.S. dollars in the latter year. That figure was forecast to increase by nearly 50 percent by the end of the decade, exceeding 345 billion dollars in 2029. As of 2024, the social media networks with the most monthly active users were Facebook, with over three billion, and YouTube, with more than 2.5 billion.

              Pros and cons of GenAI for social media marketing

              According to another 2024 survey, generative artificial intelligence's (GenAI) leading benefits for social media marketing according to professionals worldwide included increased efficiency and easier idea generation. The third place was a tie between increased content production and enhanced creativity. All those advantages were cited by between 33 and 38 percent of the interviewees. As for GenAI's top challenges for global social media marketing,
              maintaining authenticity and the value of human creativity ranked first, mentioned by 43 and 40 percent of the respondents, respectively. Another 35 percent deemed ensuring the content resonates as an obstacle.

A global survey conducted in the third quarter of 2024 found that the main reason for using social media was to keep in touch with friends and family, with over 50.8 percent of social media users saying this was their main reason for using online networks. Overall, 39 percent of social media users said that filling spare time was their main reason for using social media platforms, whilst 34.5 percent of respondents said they used it to read news stories. Less than one in five users were on social platforms for the reason of following celebrities and influencers.

              The most popular social network

              Facebook dominates the social media landscape. The world's most popular social media platform turned 20 in February 2024, and it continues to lead the way in terms of user numbers. As of February 2025, the social network had over three billion global users. YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp follow, but none of these well-known brands can surpass Facebook’s audience size.
              Moreover, as of the final quarter of 2023, there were almost four billion Meta product users.

              Ever-evolving social media usage

              The utilization of social media remains largely gratuitous; however, companies have been encouraging users to become paid subscribers to reduce dependence on advertising profits. Meta Verified entices users by offering a blue verification badge and proactive account protection, among other things. X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, and Reddit also offer users the chance to upgrade their social media accounts for a monthly free.

In 2024, Google ranked as the most valuable media and entertainment brand worldwide, with a brand value of 683 billion U.S. dollars. Facebook ranked second, valued at around 167 billion dollars. Part of the Tencent Group, WeChat and v.qq.com (Tencent Video) had a brand value of 56 billion and 17.5 billion dollars, respectively.

During a January 2024 global survey among marketers, nearly 60 percent reported plans to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes in the following 12 months. LinkedIn and Instagram followed, respectively mentioned by 57 and 56 percent of the respondents intending to use them more. According to the same survey, Facebook was the most important social media platform for marketers worldwide.

Social media companies are starting to offer users the option to subscribe to their platforms in exchange for monthly fees. Until recently, social media has been predominantly free to use, with tech companies relying on advertising as their main revenue generator. However, advertising revenues have been dropping following the COVID-induced boom. As of July 2023, Meta Verified is the most costly of the subscription services, setting users back almost 15 U.S. dollars per month on iOS or Android. Twitter Blue costs between eight and 11 U.S. dollars per month and ensures users will receive the blue check mark, and have the ability to edit tweets and have NFT profile pictures. Snapchat+, drawing in four million users as of the second quarter of 2023, boasts a Story re-watch function, custom app icons, and a Snapchat+ badge.

As of February 2025, it was found that around 14.1 percent of TikTok's global audience were women between the ages of 18 and 24 years, while male users of the same age formed approximately 16.6 percent of the platform's audience. The online audience of the popular social video platform was further composed of 14.6 percent of female users aged between 25 and 34 years, and 20.7 percent of male users in the same age group.