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LinkedIn users have filed a class action lawsuit accusing the company of overcharging advertisers for LinkedIn ads and misrepresenting how reliable its advertising platform data is.
According to lead plaintiff Drew Krisco, advertisers overpaid for LinkedIn ads for at least two years before a “measurement issue” was detected and corrected.
LinkedIn stated on its blog Nov. 12 that two LinkedIn ads “measurement issues” had been discovered and corrected by the company’s engineering team, Krisco’s class action lawsuit says. The issues apparently affected more than 418,000 customers.
The class action lawsuit cites other reporting on the LinkedIn ads issues that revealed some videos and video ads would play “while off-screen” on Apple devices. In addition, video ads would play out of view if a user scrolled past while it was buffering.
However, LinkedIn allegedly still tracked and counted these instances of out-of-view video plays “as a video view or completion.”
The company also allegedly said it may have overreported on impressions on sponsored content in LinkedIn’s feed.
Even after these issues were discovered in August 2020, the company allegedly waited two months to fix it and notify customers.
“During this time, millions of advertisers bought untold amounts of advertising on the LinkedIn platform, with absolutely no notice of ongoing or previous failures to properly track and monitor advertising performance,” the class action lawsuit said. “Of course, this same issue had been ongoing for two years without notice or explanation, impacting billions of ad dollars spent with Defendant LinkedIn.”
Krisco, who works in real estate, said he purchased LinkedIn ads beginning in 2020 as a way of promoting job opportunities.
He says he became aware of the platform’s “measurement issues” in November, but without detailed information from the company, he doesn’t know what ads were affected, when they were affected or “the full nature of the damage he suffered.”
Livly Inc., the other named plaintiff, had a similar experience.
“While LinkedIn has tried to downplay the impact of this failure to monitor and control its own advertising platform, the total extent of the damage to their customers is not yet known,” the class action lawsuit alleges. “Nor is there conclusive proof that these problems have been fully rectified and that other unknown ‘measurement issues’ may not lurk in its vast system.”
Krisco says he and members of a proposed Class paid for “an unknown number” of ineffective LinkedIn ads because they were denied the opportunity to create and run more effective ads.
He says had he and others known LinkedIn ads’ information was unreliable, they would have advertised on other platforms.
LinkedIn, a networking site for professionals and jobseekers, has more than 260 million active monthly users, according to the class action lawsuit, “a robust and active audience for an untold number of advertisers to buy a wide range of advertisements.”
As on other social media platforms, advertisers pay “extortionary amounts to reach target audiences” with LinkedIn ads and rely on the platform to be honest in how it tracks and charges for the ads, Krisco’s class action lawsuit explains.
The LinkedIn ads class action lawsuit alleges the company is in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law and is guilty of fraud.
“LinkedIn’s dissemination of inaccurate and inflated advertising metrics constitutes a fraudulent practice” under the Unfair Competition Law, the class action lawsuit states, because “it is likely to deceive Class [M]embers into believing that their paid advertisements generated a highly inflated number of impressions.”
The plaintiffs claim LinkedIn is guilty of fraud because the company either knew the metrics it was reporting were false or reported them “without regard for their truth.”
Even if the company is being truthful when it says it didn’t discover the measurement issues until August, it still gave out false metrics for additional months, the class action lawsuit says.
“The persistence of LinkedIn’s false metrics was possible only because LinkedIn did not take verification of its metrics seriously, severely understaffed the engineering team in charge of fixing errors, did not fully investigate or correct errors that were reported to it, and refused to allow third-party verification of its metrics,” the complaint states.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for the amount they and Class Members were overcharged. In addition, they are seeking an accounting of their LinkedIn ads accounts to ensure all have been properly paid.
They also demand a jury trial.
Have you paid to advertise on LinkedIn? What do you think of the LinkedIn ads class action lawsuit? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Rafey Balabanian, Todd Logan, and Brandt Silver-Korn of Edelson PC. and Antonio M. Romanucci, Bryce T. Hensley, and David A. Neiman of Romanucci & Blandin LLC.
The LinkedIn Ads Class Action Lawsuit is Drew Krisco, et al. v. LinkedIn Corp., Case No. 5:20-cv-08204-SVK, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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