An Open Letter to Meta: Five Questions Higher Education Institutions Have About Your Algorithm

Meta, you’re a monolith. You’ve revolutionized the marketing industry, and you’ve done it impressively so. Never before have we as marketers been able to reach people the way we do now, and we’re reaping the benefits in every corner of our business.

Your model is unmatched. But, after a recent scroll through my newsfeed, I have a couple of questions that I just can’t shake.

A quick prologue before we dive in:

A few nights ago as I sat on my couch to binge-watch what was ultimately a bad TV series, I caught myself lost in a never-ending scroll on Facebook. Out of all the platforms, I probably use it the least, but for some reason, it had me hooked that night. I always tell myself not to do this, but somehow I get caught doom scrolling. I have to admit it, Meta, you’re good at what you do!

As I continued to scroll, I couldn’t help but notice there was one consistent theme that kept repeating itself in my feed: the onslaught of ads from higher education institutions. Without exaggeration, every third ad was an advertisement for a university.

What was even more head-scratching to me, was the range of offerings that were pitched to me. It was actually quite flattering! From prestigious Ivy League universities to technical schools; from 4-class remote packages to multi-year, in-person MBA programs; from social work to cyber security; From 5:53 pm to 6:23 pm, I counted 120 different university programs that served me an advertisement. That’s right, 120 ads in a period of time that would be the equivalent of watching a half-hour episode of Seinfeld on your local television station.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m completely flattered. Meta, it seems you have more faith in my ability to be anything I want to be than my own parents. With this many universities chasing me across so many different disciplines, maybe I’m more gifted than I thought! Or maybe I’m just such a dope that you’re subliminally encouraging me to seek out more education. Who’s to say?

Candidly, as a Facebook user, it was quite odd to have the content from my friends and family that I actually sought be drowned out by an onslaught of hyper-specific advertising. But as a marketing professional who works in the higher education space, it was eye-opening and prompted some important questions I fear are not being asked enough.

In one respect, it makes 100% sense why I might be getting ads for lifelong learning programs. I work in the world of higher education marketing, so it’s no knock on the algorithm for putting me in their pool. I visit websites and click on ads because that’s my line of business.

The marketers at these universities and the marketing agencies that support them — including my own team at Town Hall — are smart folks who are following the trail of performance marketing success. But they aren’t getting the full picture of what’s happening outside of what a performance report is showing them and this points to a flaw in one frustratingly opaque side of the digital advertising model. The side that prides itself on algorithms that simply say, “Trust us — we will put the right ad in front of the right person.”

Given the range, scope, and frequency of the advertising, how could I not take a step back and ask some fundamental questions as 120 competitive brands duked it out on my phone?

So, with the exposition out of the way, here are a few questions I have on behalf of some of my friends in the Higher Education industry.

Is Brand Integrity Being Compromised?

I’ve heard it said that one way of calculating brand value is the difference between your cost to produce and the price you can get for it. In this definition, perception is everything. And if perception is everything, the competitive set you surround yourself with is key in presenting your desired brand perception. An Ivy League university and a technical school have very different brand goals when it comes to exclusivity versus accessibility. I’m hard-pressed to see where this is being accounted for based on the stream of advertising I was served.

What Is the Cost We Are Paying for the Wrong Prospects?

The fact that this many schools are engaging me is the algorithm at work. I’ve shown interest — now, it’s trying to move me to action. So much so that it refuses to cap its efforts. The cost of wasted impressions for these schools is one thing, but the real cost is far higher. The cost of fielding, managing, and nurturing RFI leads is time-consuming and expensive. Most institutions don’t have fully integrated, end-to-end systems that speak to each other as applicants enter and pass through the system. While in theory, the algorithm works this out, at what cost is this coming?

Is My First-Party Data Helping Facebook’s Ad Business More Than It’s Helping Me?

Each of these universities is most likely giving a significant amount of consumer data for machine learning to do its job, but who is actually benefiting from it? Yes, your advertising may be smart, but it makes you wonder how this data is then used to make your competitor’s marketing smarter.

Should I Really Blindly Trust an Algorithm That Thought 120 Options Would be a Good Use of Advertiser Dollars?

There’s been a consistent push by the major media platforms, led by Meta, to ask marketers to trust the machines over our gut. At the same time, they also have provided little to no understanding of the dynamics that make the algorithm work. After all, it’s their “trade secret.” But if you’re not going to show me the algorithm, I suppose I’m going to fill in some blanks. Here’s what I do know — if brands knew just how competitive the field was going to be and had a more complete picture of who that competitive set actually was, many would likely have chosen another direction with their ad dollars. Surely there’s a balance to be found in applying human insight to algorithmic suggestions to optimize ad performance.

If the Competition Is This Fierce for One Prospect — Are We Actually Equipped to Win the End-to-End Applicant Journey?

We’ve heard the saying to fish where the fish are, but is it a good idea to fish where the sharks are? If 120 different universities are delivering an onslaught of advertising to the prospects you see, have we reached a new dawn to seek out a better zig or zag? Have we reached the point where we are simply running with the herd?

Meta, you have done wonders in helping marketers reach audiences in highly efficient ways over the years. The model is unprecedented: a media platform that has no minimum spend and no minimum commitment. But I think the major question we need to consider now is whether the hidden costs that come along for the ride are really worth it.

I’ll close with the 120 advertisements I saw if you’re at all interested in joining me on the doom scroll. I’ve blurred the ads.

One important caveat to this story — it was me who closed the app to stop the onslaught of ads. As far as I could tell, there was no end in sight for ads continuing to be served to me.