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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

#141

Post by jasonlotito »

> This visitor is very different - it feels like it has ADD, or its a paid slave boy somewhere, or a bot that has clumsy intelligence.

I'm happy to see you associate someone with ADD with slaves or a non-intelligent bot.

"Each week receive hand-picked insights to help you develop your career & get promoted faster" by learning how to randomly insult people and equate them with slavery.

"BE GREAT AT WHAT YOU DO", like insulting people you've never met.

Do your testimonials come from people who learned how to insult people?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#143

Post by [deleted] »

bumblebeard wrote: post #63
victorhooi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bot…

I guess I'm cheap then. I have no interest in paying any amount of money to read most of the things I read online. It seems to me that it's not so much that people are demanding this content for free as it is that people don't think it's worth paying for. It's not that I particularly wanted to see an article about the usefulness of advertising as it is that it's something to read on the bus. I would probably just loo…

[deleted]

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#144

Post by edblarney »

WalterSear wrote: post #53
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…

At my last company, we worked with Google's in-house team to build adword campaigns, eventually spending the better part of a million dollars over the course of 9 months or so, with free assistance from them in the development of campaigns and with their ongoing guidance and advice. From our meetings with them, they were quite confident that our strategy was appropriate, that there existed an audience that we could r…

Why would you spend $1 Million on ads that were not working?

Did you not test your ads to grasp the conversion rate before spending the money?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#145

Post by WalterSear »

point78 wrote: post #83
WalterSear wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last company, we worked with Google's in-house team to build adword campaigns, eventually spending the better part of a million dollars over the course of 9 months or so, with free assistance from them in the development of campaigns and with their ongoing guidance and advice. From our meetings with them, they were quite confident that our strategy was appropriate, that there existed an audience that we could r…

Sounds like a bad product

That's not an unfair conclusion. However, our retention rate after the first order was spectacular, and we slowly gathered a core group of users who were using our services exclusively. Unfortunately, despite providing a ubiquitous business service, we couldn't gather customers fast enough to float the boat.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#146

Post by b2600 »

victorhooi wrote: post #43
dajohnson89 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bot…

I think there is some tremendous gap between what a site believes it's value to be and the value to the person behind the keyboard. My opinion is the reverse of yours. Internet users aren't necessarily cheap, the sites overvalue the content they provide. Just because someone provides content doesn't mean it's good enough to make a living. If people leave site A because they charge for site B that's free but of less value, it may mean that site A doesn't provide enough value for the price they want to charge.Personally, I don't care how intrusive you think they are, I'm not going to view them. Why would you want me to, I'm not going to click anyway. I do pay for several sites via subscription (FT, WSJ, NYT, and others) and I pay for my email service(s) and I pay for Amazon and Netflix and Mubi and Hulu. Oh, I also pay for my broadband connection. If you think that anyone who puts content online should be compensated by default, that's the weirdest contention I've ever heard.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#147

Post by WalterSear »

edblarney wrote: post #144
WalterSear wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last company, we worked with Google's in-house team to build adword campaigns, eventually spending the better part of a million dollars over the course of 9 months or so, with free assistance from them in the development of campaigns and with their ongoing guidance and advice. From our meetings with them, they were quite confident that our strategy was appropriate, that there existed an audience that we could r…

Why would you spend $1 Million on ads that were not working? Did you not test your ads to grasp the conversion rate before spending the money?

Wasn't my job to manage ad spends, but I believe that somebody got in a great deal of trouble over the majority of that.

On the whole, IMHO, the business people weren't being entirely foolish, or foolhardy with our money - ultimately advertising costs a lot, and some adwords are expensive, and there aren't that many choices if you trying to get leads from a specific type of user.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#148

Post by edblarney »

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…

"There is reason companies spend ~$70 billion on Adwords annually. "

You'd be surprised how a lot of marketing budget is wasted.

Especially in brand advertising, where there is no directly measurable ROI.

Toothpaste, paper towels, cars, cereal - they spend gazillions on those brands.

But think of this: most 'ad spend' is spent on completely commoditized products - I'll guarantee you the 'no name' toothpaste is as good as 'Crest' or whatever.

Our economy is made up of huge 'soft monopolies'.

The grocery stores, pharmacy chains, 'big brands' like P&G - they are all systematically slow, barriers to entry are surprisingly high (you can make toothpaste easily, but you cannot build a brand easily). Car companies, entertainment channels. Banks.

Talk to some of the front line marketing people buying ads. They are often clueless. They have no idea often if the money is well spent or not. But the have a 'budget' and 'have to spend' it across various channels. They know they need to 'go social' so they buy ads from 'known brands' like Facebook and Google.

Now - the other source of more profitable ads are simply things where you can reasonably get conversions online. Anything for your household that you can buy at Ebay, Amazon etc., i.e. consumer goods.

And then the scammy stuff.

Some of the above complaints about the value of ads have merit - that said - they may not be making products that are amenable to online ads.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#149

Post by Nition »

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.

This sounds like a joke but when an obtrusive ad comes up I literally only see Close, X, etc now. Totally tune out the whole thing except the parts that look like they might make it go away.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#150

Post by b2600 »

victorhooi wrote: post #137
Fnoord wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. There are 3 problems with this statement. 1) There is a lot of free content, easily found, and content gets more rapidly out of date nowadays. Paid content must deal with this (newsworthy, in depth competition). 2) Your view is US centric; the vast majority (read: not all) of internet users from other countries generally have less money to spend.…

Let me address your three points in order: 1. There is a lot of free content - yeah, the internet is full of free content, but much of is click-bait garbage, or re-posted a billion times. Let's be honest - true, honest-to-goodness original journalism costs money. Good writing costs money. Investigating journalism costs money. Getting people to actually go out into the real world, and interview people, or write about…

So poor people don't/won't read the Economist? They "don't care to". wow. BTW, these click-bait sites are rewarded by your employer who then is able to pay you. As an aside: Doesn't google still provide a text only web cache that strips ads? What if I use wget or curl? What about reader view in safari or firefox, absent from chrome of course. Rss? Blocking ads is only one way to go.
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