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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

#191

Post by matt4077 »

phamilton wrote: post #132
agumonkey wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curiosit…

Curious, how does your behavior around perfectly elastic goods play out? Two products, same price, arguably indistinguishable (eg. Coke and Pepsi). I like to think I fall into the same category, where ads don't prompt me to spend money I wasn't going to spend before, but I think all else being equal I stick to brands I've heard of (via ads).

Trying to find someone who'll say "off course ads work on me" is about as difficult as finding s/o admitting to be a bad driver.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#192

Post by flukus »

victorhooi wrote: post #140
ams6110 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News sites don't get it. There is no story I'm interested in reading in the WSJ or NYT that I can't find on a dozen other free news sites. Sure they do investigative pieces, but if they are really noteworthy they'll get reported on elsewhere within hours. I would never consider paying for a news site.

I don't know if you've actually thought your logic through to completion. You claim that you would "never consider paying for a news site", because it'll just get re-posted somewhere else. I urge you to think and reflect on what you've just claimed. Investigative journalism costs money. Going out and interviewing people, or taking photographs costs money. Digging through old archives, or filing Freedom of Information…

Most countries, at least in the west, have high quality government funded news services.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#193

Post by neya »

cconcepts wrote: post #154
rackforms wrote: post #114

I'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…

The spammy links thing fascinates me. I don't know much about search algos or SEO but on our small, industrial business site we couldn't understand why, after many hours and thousands of dollars spent on the procedures that Google recommends, our organic ranking in SERPs for a very niche product (of which we are one of only three providers in our region) was appalling - often page three. It wasn't till we realised we…

I second the other commenter's opinion on disavow-ing links. It did have a positive impact on one of my online properties.

Reference: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#194

Post by maksimum »

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…

You're definitely not alone.

For some reason comments are often more interesting than the articles themselves, and people never think of monetizing their comments. Somehow karma is enough of a reward.

If I had to watch an ad for 30 seconds or pay $0.25, the proceeds of which would be distributed to commentators by proportion of karma they earned in the comment section ... I probably wouldn't bother.

It doesn't make much sense to me how I arrive at these utility valuations though.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#195

Post by matt4077 »

jondubois wrote: post #76
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…

I felt the same when I tried LinkedIn ads... It doesn't even compare to a poorly targeted Reddit post. I don't know if big companies get special treatment, but as a small startup, these ad networks just don't seem to work at all. Sometimes I feel that the reason why big companies advertise through Facebook/LinkedIn/Google is not to promote themselves, but rather, to bleed small competitors out of business by inflatin…

I'm spending ca $150/mo on google and getting a few hundred in revenue from it – not even including repeat purchases from these sales (about 80% y/y retention). It's been like that for 8 years.

Facebook on the other hand... Probably spend $2000 trying all sorts of things over the years and I'm not sure if there's a single new customer that can be attributed to it.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#196

Post by cconcepts »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #166
cconcepts wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spammy links thing fascinates me. I don't know much about search algos or SEO but on our small, industrial business site we couldn't understand why, after many hours and thousands of dollars spent on the procedures that Google recommends, our organic ranking in SERPs for a very niche product (of which we are one of only three providers in our region) was appalling - often page three. It wasn't till we realised we…

1) Update your Disavow file properly, which I am sure you've done 2) Email Google directly. It is sometimes difficult to find a way to email, but once you do they'll take care of it.

Any suggestions on where to search for such an email address?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#197

Post by iopq »

emmanuel_1234 wrote: post #117
rackforms wrote: post #114

I'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?

Chinese businesses don't care, Russian businesses don't care, etc.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#198

Post by reefoctopus »

cconcepts wrote: post #161
Taek wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, if there's money on the line there's a lot of reason to target you for a penalty. Scammy sites can't get attention if there's a legitimate site in the search results. SEO is a big industry and taking down competitors is a part of being the top N results.

So how do I combat against this? We're a small, honest company providing great products and services for the companies that need them but we're getting killed online because no one can find us. I've forked out a lot (for us) on adwords and the return has been negligible to say the least. Does this mean that the democratizing power of the internet has been swallowed up for small, lean companies like us who cant afford…

You have to disavow the bad links. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#199

Post by edwinyzh »

rackforms wrote: post #114

I'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…

It never occurred to me that back links from other websites would hurt ranking, I thought it's OK as long as a website don't point to other spamming sites... So this is really scary, it means that other people can attach your ranking...

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#200

Post by jslabovitz »

somid3 wrote: post #185
jslabovitz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thread is horrifying to me. And I'm saying that as someone who has been online for 35 years, and who (I cringe to admit) worked on the first web-based advertising in 1993. It's like watching a child grow up to be a cruel dictator.

Care to elaborate?

On being horrified, or on early web ads?

For the latter: I worked on Global Network Navigator [1] from 1993-1995. GNN was the first commercial website, published by O'Reilly & Associates. I was the technical director of GNN. We experimented with various types of financial support, including what today would call sponsored content. My first gig at GNN in October 1993 was coding the HTML for the the initial sponsored content article (for a Bay area law firm). Around the same time, Wired (as HotWired) invented banner ads -- I lay no claim to that! ;)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Network_Navigator

For the former: I think systems like FullStory are incredibly intrusive. Why would I want my personal scrolling & clicking actions captured, played back, and analyzed? How have we come to accept this as normal? I realize most people don't think about this, but that's because they don't realize the level of information that is accrued. I know when I've tried to explain how much information is gathered, my non-techie friends are horrified themselves. Sure, it might be anonymized (or might not); regardless, it's just fucking creepy.

Reading this thread made me double-check my ad-blocker/anti-tracker settings, clear all my cookies, and think again about just disabling Javascript entirely.

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