One of the visitors to this thread shared this link with me via email: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud - might help others researching the topic.
Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
111–120 of 382 posts
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#112This is due to the ad fraud bubble. We have covered it extensively on Software Engineering Daily: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud
Ah, thanks for your email!
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#113I 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…
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
I sell an OSX app for advanced users, and as you said, they don't click on ads and it would make more sense to heat my house with $20 bills instead sending them to fb/adwords.
However, I ran 2-day flash-sale and it went unexpectedly good. I never thought devs and tech-savvy people visit websites like that.
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#114I've got a long history here, stretching all the way back to 2007. At that time 80% of my traffic was organic, and most importantly, was spread equally between MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc.
I paid for ad's through HotScripts, and this was a solid source of leads. This mixture, along with a fast, secure, easy to use site and great word of mouth lead to an annual growth rate of around 30%, ending up in 2011 with a monthly income of just over $5000. Not bad for what started out as a side-project. I took none of this for granted, and worked by butt off every day.
It's key to note from 2007 to 2011 a great consolidation was taking place, with Google eating, for me at least, 90% of all search traffic.
Then the spammers hit. My site was targeted with millions of low quality links, which lead to a Google penalty in 2012. I lost 90% of my traffic and along with it, 90% of my revenue.
4 years on and I've never actually recovered from my penalty, with traffic being manually limited to under 30 clicks on any particular day.
I've done my best to advertise, with Google capturing the lions share. Unfortunately I too have very little luck with this channel, with only 1 $4 conversion after hundreds spent.
The real kicker here, and my reason for posting, is the difference between what was my organic traffic then, and my ad traffic now, is nowhere near the same in terms of quality and obviously, conversions.
I guess my point is the current situation, basically 2 companies controlling so much traffic, seems, well, bad for small business in this country. I value what they bring to the table and fully understand why they're so popular. But is things keep on this way where does that lead the guys like me? Is this just the way it has to be? Is the dream of the open Internet already dead?
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#115I 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.
Depends on the audience too. I'm anti consumerist somehow and reject ads mentally (it's as if they didn't exist on TV to my mind).
The few times I've clicked on ads were for odd geek products (SBC). A few times I found a website / company that indeed taught me something about a brand / product / idea ... but in retrospect a webpage ad is way too superficial for me to know that in advance, and doesn't trigger curiosity much (offseted by the browsing experience penalties).
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#116Google worked better for me since people search with intent whereas on facebook you rely on serendipity. They are there for something else and you hope they will have interest in your service.
All in all are you sure you use the right keywords in google so you get the people with right intent?
Facebook's strength is audience targeting. Are you sure the audience you target is the right one on Facebook?
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#117I've got a long history here, stretching all the way back to 2007. At that time 80% of my traffic was organic, and most importantly, was spread equally between MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc. I paid for ad's through HotScripts, and this was a solid source of leads. This mixture, along with a fast, secure, easy to use site and great word of mouth lead to an annual growth rate of around 30%, ending up in 2011 with a mont…
"I guess my point is the current situation, basically 2 companies controlling so much traffic, seems, well, bad for small business in this country"
Why "in this country"? Isn't it a problem for the entrepreneurs in the rest of the world too?
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#118I've got a long history here, stretching all the way back to 2007. At that time 80% of my traffic was organic, and most importantly, was spread equally between MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc. I paid for ad's through HotScripts, and this was a solid source of leads. This mixture, along with a fast, secure, easy to use site and great word of mouth lead to an annual growth rate of around 30%, ending up in 2011 with a mont…
Wow, this is EXACTLY why I found this topic so annoying. Thank you for sharing!
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Make sure you control which countries your ads can show in. 90% of my budget for high tech equipment was getting spent in Bangladesh. Pure fraud. Once you start clamping down a LOT, results can get better.
For the US market, I'd love to see a breakdown of visitors via Google and Facebook and see what % of them use an IP that is associated with a VPN. If the % is high, then there is a case to be made that most of the clicks are from abroad VPNing into the US.
How do I find this list of VPN IPS? I know Netflix knows it but not sure they are sharing...
Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the US market, I'd love to see a breakdown of visitors via Google and Facebook and see what % of them use an IP that is associated with a VPN. If the % is high, then there is a case to be made that most of the clicks are from abroad VPNing into the US.
How do I find this list of VPN IPS? I know Netflix knows it but not sure they are sharing...
I would start with public proxy lists like HideMyAss. I can't imagine foreign users pay premium for VPN services like IPVanish, etc.