Banished marketing CEO to Facebook: ‘We deserve a second chance’

HasOffers chief Peter Hamilton has a message for Facebook: Give us a second chance.

“Facebook has done some amazing things in in the market in terms of expanding the mobile advertising ecosystem,” Hamilton told VentureBeat. “I don’t want to be pointing the fingers at anybody, but we deserve a second chance.”

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Facebook severed its relationship with Hamilton’s HasOffers and Playhaven/ Kontagent for not adhering to the social media giant’s data collection and sharing policies. Facebook accused both companies of hanging onto customer data for too long and not notifying developers of their data collection practices.

HasOffers and Kontagent provide advertising attribution analytics services.

Facebook emailed me this response Thursday:

“After working with a third-party auditor to review the practices of all our mobile measurement partners, we discovered that some weren’t adhering to the terms they agreed to. As a result, we’ve removed a couple of our partners from the program. These partners can no longer work with marketers on Facebook. We have an audit system in place for this very reason. We take our contracts seriously, and will continue to act swiftly anytime we find out they are being violated.”

Privately, a Facebook source said both companies “got sloppy.”

Facebook’s decision has sent shockwaves through the mobile advertising space, Hamilton said. “We exist within Facebook’s ecosystem. I need to be careful here, but this will have an impact for many [other firms in the space],” Hamilton said.

AdExchanger broke the story. Facebook asserted both companies violated policies on holding customer data too long and failing to notify developers of their data collection practices. The companies will not be allowed to provide Facebook measurement or add new advertisers.

However, Facebook and HasOffers told VentureBeat that their business relationship was not suddenly terminated. Rather, Facebook will not renew collaboration with HasOffers when the contract expires in April.

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Facebook has 11 mobile marketing partners left in its program, including Apsalar, Trademob, and Localytics. The companies provide an important service of attributing app installs and app-based revenue back to the exact Facebook ads.

Andy Yang, chief executive of Playhaven/Kontagent, responded in a blog post.

Hamilton said his firm, launched in 2009, has 144 employees at  its Seattle headquarters and asserted that Facebook accounts for less than 1 percent of revenue. HasOffers raked in $19 million last year, Hamilton said, and he projects that haul to surpass $45 million by the end of 2014.

“Look at Facebook,” Hamilton said, pointing to their Market Street valuation and over 1 billion users. “We’re looking for solutions with them.”

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Dean Takahasi contributed to this post.