LinkedIn has reported a significant error in its ad reporting, which has caused many LinkedIn advertisers to be overcharged for their campaigns over the past two years.

As explained by LinkedIn: 

“In August, our engineering team discovered and then subsequently fixed two measurement issues in our ads products that may have overreported some Sponsored Content campaign metrics for impression and video views.” 

The error, reportedly, relates to campaigns that ran on iOS devices, and was triggered when users rotated their phones to watch videos. When this occurred, LinkedIn’s system counted these as additional video views, which were then listed within your campaign metrics.

“These issues potentially impacted more than 418,000 customers over a two-plus year period. More than 90% of customers saw an impact of less than US $25, and we are currently working with all customers who were impacted to provide full credit to their accounts.”

So the scope, in terms of charges, is not significant, but the scale is fairly large, which could see LinkedIn issuing a fair amount in ad credits. You would assume, also, that advertisers would be able to ask for their money back, rather than credit, given the nature of the fault. LinkedIn’s contacting many advertisers direct to advise them of the issue.

Moving forward, LinkedIn says that it’s working with the Media Rating Council (MRC) to conduct an audit of its metrics, while it’s also collaborating with Moat to improve its video measurement systems.

It’s an embarrassing error for the company, and any slip-up like this has the potential to undermine advertiser confidence. But the platform is doing what it can to rectify the fault, and ensure it improves its processes moving forward.