Facebook Claims U.S. Reach Wider Than Official U.S. Population

(RTTNews) - Facebook promises advertisers that ads placed on its platform reaches more US customers than actually exist.

Facebook's Ads Manager claims that ads have a potential to reach 41 million people between 18- to 24-year and 60 million between 25- to 34-year olds in the United States. However, according to the U.S. census data, last year there were a total of 31 million people between the ages of 18 and 24, and 45 million in the 25-34 age group.

"While Facebook's measurement issues won't necessarily deter advertisers from spending money with Facebook, they will help traditional TV sellers justify existing budget shares and could restrain Facebook's growth in video ad sales on the margins," said research analyst Brian Wieser from Pivotal Research Group.

Wieser claims that the gap will make major big league advertisers to demands for third-party measurement services.

Facebook said in a statement that its reach estimates "are designed to estimate how many people in a given area are eligible to see an ad a business might run. They are not designed to match population or census estimates"