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Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

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Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#41

Post by soared »

abalashov wrote: post #31
usaphp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your product specialized to technical users? I've noticed that businesses with more technical clients have harder time getting customers via ads, because most technical users don't click on ads

Indeed; you can see some links in my profile. Our product is unquestionably a big-ticket, slow-moving, long-sales-cycle kind of thing. However, there were plenty of clicks. I've just never had a single sale, and only a very small handful of low-quality enquiries, despite lots of traffic.

Well that's very possibly an attribution issue. Those clicks led to traffic, and if the sales cycle is long those clicks will take months to convert. Unless you are tracking sessions back to their source months after the fact, you can't really know if those ads led to conversions or not.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#42

Post by soared »

somid3 wrote: post #3
dbg31415 wrote: post #2

90% useless is still better than most of the alternatives. Seriously though, it's hard to track success. If I'm showing an ad wanting people to rush out and buy sneakers... it's rare that it will hit the right person at the right spot in their sneaker purchase decision journey. But what I want is to bombard them with information so that when they are ready to buy sneakers, they think positively of the sneakers I am s…

True. Early on when I used the Google Keyword tool it told me it could drive 400 clicks with a max bid of $0.50 per click. In reality I can get 10 clicks for $1.25 per click -- and that is when the conversion rate is an order of magnitude worst. For me that means I am paying 100X more than what I had expected.

Keyword tool covers the total market, not what you can expect to get. Quality score increases your cpc, and you'll never ever get 100% of clicks.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#43

Post by victorhooi »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #25
abalashov wrote: post #23

I really thought I was crazy when I thought that a 99% bounce rate is unreal, even for my highly specialised product sites which cater to a very niche audience. But I ultimately came to a similar conclusion; no matter what ads I come up with, it's money down the drain, and I've never had a single conversion that came through the door that way. I've spent untold thousands on paid ads. I learned a great deal about whic…

We, as users, have been oversaturated and desensitized. There is so much crap shoved in our faces, that we've learned over the years to ignore all ads. Speaking for myself, I have an almost visceral negative reaction with ads. I would (and do) pay dumb amounts of money for a service if that means I'm not served ads.

What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority.

People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content.

Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bottom.

Ads seems to be the only model that works (thus far).

Many attempts have been made to monetise things (a la micropayments).

I believe Google did something before, where you paid cents, or fractions of a cent to authors for article views. This was back in 2012:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407

And recently Mozilla's Brendan Eich is doing Brave, with bitcoin micropayments. I'd love to see it gain traction, but I don't see it going mainstream.

Look, I know some ad networks go too far - but IMHO, Google/FB ads are hardly that intrusive. (I personally hate pop-up/pop-under ads, and auto-playing videos)

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not in ads - above opinions are purely my own).

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#44

Post by flashman »

soared wrote: post #36

OP is simply doing it wrong. Advertising works, and the title's claim only shows how inexperienced op is. I work at a digital ad agency. Ads work if you do it correctly, but it's incredibly easy to waste money. People like op are why google and Facebook make buying ads overly complicated - if it were easy you wouldn't have to spend so much money. If op is reading this, I'd be happy to hop on a phone call and help you…

Once upon a time there was an affiliate link that paid me $5 per referred sale. I sent them Adwords traffic at 30c/click and a 10% conversion rate ($3/sale = $2 profit for me) until they eventually realised they could just do Adwords themselves.

It doesn't matter if you're only converting 1% of advertising traffic if that 1% is profitable.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#45

Post by abalashov »

soared wrote: post #41
abalashov wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed; you can see some links in my profile. Our product is unquestionably a big-ticket, slow-moving, long-sales-cycle kind of thing. However, there were plenty of clicks. I've just never had a single sale, and only a very small handful of low-quality enquiries, despite lots of traffic.

Well that's very possibly an attribution issue. Those clicks led to traffic, and if the sales cycle is long those clicks will take months to convert. Unless you are tracking sessions back to their source months after the fact, you can't really know if those ads led to conversions or not.

No, not with definitive certainty. However, the traffic volumes involved are low enough that I have a pretty good idea of how people that buy came to know about the product or came to visit the site for the first time. A high percentage of the time, they tell me.

Never, ever have I heard, "Saw your ad on Google".

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#46

Post by soared »

somid3 wrote: post #4
dbg31415 wrote: post #2

90% useless is still better than most of the alternatives. Seriously though, it's hard to track success. If I'm showing an ad wanting people to rush out and buy sneakers... it's rare that it will hit the right person at the right spot in their sneaker purchase decision journey. But what I want is to bombard them with information so that when they are ready to buy sneakers, they think positively of the sneakers I am s…

The case I am making is I believe Google & Facebook mix "active" and "non-active" users to create an artificial stream of users such that paying by impression is always worst than CPC.

Sorry man, but you're not experienced enough to make these claims. Search, display, and social are entirely different channels and have completely different strategies. Display is for awareness, you shouldn't be trying to get clicks.

You get charged for misclicks so maybe that's what you are seeing. But cpm bidding generally isn't for driving traffic anyways. Cpc is usually more expensive because it is way more targeted and is intent based.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#47

Post by [deleted] »

somid3 wrote: post #4
dbg31415 wrote: post #2

90% useless is still better than most of the alternatives. Seriously though, it's hard to track success. If I'm showing an ad wanting people to rush out and buy sneakers... it's rare that it will hit the right person at the right spot in their sneaker purchase decision journey. But what I want is to bombard them with information so that when they are ready to buy sneakers, they think positively of the sneakers I am s…

The case I am making is I believe Google & Facebook mix "active" and "non-active" users to create an artificial stream of users such that paying by impression is always worst than CPC.

[deleted]

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#48

Post by [deleted] »

somid3 wrote: post #4
dbg31415 wrote: post #2

90% useless is still better than most of the alternatives. Seriously though, it's hard to track success. If I'm showing an ad wanting people to rush out and buy sneakers... it's rare that it will hit the right person at the right spot in their sneaker purchase decision journey. But what I want is to bombard them with information so that when they are ready to buy sneakers, they think positively of the sneakers I am s…

The case I am making is I believe Google & Facebook mix "active" and "non-active" users to create an artificial stream of users such that paying by impression is always worst than CPC.

[deleted]

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#50

Post by obstinate »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #24

I see these posts all the time of DIY Adwords/FB and then a claim it doesn't work. This would be like me, a non-carpenter, trying to build a house, seeing how bad it looks and then claiming building materials suck. There is reason companies spend ~$70 billion on Adwords annually. So because Adwords/FB didn't work for you doesn't mean their traffic is 90% useless. And dont get me wrong, I completely acknowledge there…

Anyway, if the traffic is 90% useless, doesn't that mean it's 10% useful? I mean, just going by the title. -- Google employee, but not in ads. Take my words with the appropriately sized grain of salt.
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