Meta’s ad math now comes with creative accounting and a side of shipping fees.
Nice
A whistleblower alleges that Meta (META) artificially inflated return on ad spend by counting shipping fees as revenue, subsidizing bids in ad auctions, and applying undisclosed discounts, according to Ad Week – Source
— KKGB (@INArteCarloDoss) August 20, 2025
Seems bad. pic.twitter.com/YkUtlmvaPS
— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) August 20, 2025
I'm old enough to remember investors' concern about the rate of cash burn at Meta during 2022, when they punished the stock with a drop of up to 77% from its peak, until Mark gave in and cut capex.
Now we are facing an almost identical situation where Meta has 40% less cash on… pic.twitter.com/Cx5Oikeu1r
— Kakashii (@kakashiii111) August 20, 2025
META TO DOWNSIZE AI DIVISION, SOME EXECUTIVES EXPECTED TO LEAVE: NYT
— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) August 19, 2025
“Meta counted shipping fees and taxes as part of a sale, even though that money never went to merchants,” said whistleblower Samujjal Purkayastha in a formal complaint filed in the U.K. tribunal. “This was significant… the Shops Ads team had in fact missed [its target] once the figure was reduced to take account of the artificial inflation.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/whistleblower-alleges-meta-artificially-boosted-142537816.html
The company didn’t stop at shipping. It “manipulated [ROAS] by including shipping fees, taxes, and undisclosed discounts in the revenue calculations,” according to Franetic’s breakdown of the complaint. Internal reviews showed ROAS was overstated by 17% to 19%. https://franetic.com/whistleblower-claims-meta-inflated-shops-ad-metrics/
Newsquawk confirmed the same pattern: “Meta artificially inflated return on ad spend by counting shipping fees as revenue, subsidizing bids in ad auctions, and applying undisclosed discounts.” https://newsquawk.com/headlines/a-whistleblower-alleges-that-meta-meta-artificially-inflated-return-on-ad-spend-by-counting-shipping-fees-as-revenue-subsidizing-bids-in-ad-auctions-and-applying-undisclosed-discounts-according-to-ad-week-20-08-2025