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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

#251

Post by geocar »

somid3 wrote: post #21
krmmalik wrote: post #19

We've been doong FB for almost a year now and have learned alot in this space, (with still alot to go). Here are some things that might help you. 1. The type of ad you run and the copy you use has a big impact on the user's behaviour. Not all ads are created equal. Good copy that really taps i to why someone should be clicking through and what value they can expect to attain the other end makes a big difference. But…

This is true. What would be amazing is if there was a way to audit their advertising algorithms to know it is fair. I tried their new Contact Form tool, but the cost per lead is about $17/lead. At the end of the day, if someone is advertising a product that is incredibly good, they should be able to use CPM instead of CPC. The point I am trying to make is that I believe the CPM model is dependent on making CPC & othe…

Publishers want to get paid for the opportunity (CPM) but Advertisers want to pay a portion of their revenue (PPA): PPL, PPV, PPC and PPM are all proxies for that customer acquisition, so if you want to buy effectively, you need to start by figuring out what your costs per acquisition are. If you can't even hypothetically afford anything close to $17/lead, you might not be able to purchase customers yet, but if you can, then figuring out your lead-to-sales ratio is a lot easier than working out everything between the impression and the sales.

You might consider looking for an agency that specialises in PPL/PPA; basically doing revshare, and letting them build appropriate site lists, and user demographics, and copy testing and so on to help figure out what makes your product sell -- they will put skin in the game because they can leverage their expertise.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#252

Post by mercer »

enraged_camel wrote: post #188
victorhooi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>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 stuff costs money. Who's going to pay for that? Investigative journalism is in its death throes, and it's not because of lack of money. It's because of lack of interest from audiences. N…

I'm not so pessimistic. For example, over here in Holland we have De Correspondent, which does an admirable job at depth over 'breaking first' (it's even their mission statement: beyond the whims of the day, loosely translated). They're very loosely paywalled and get by on paying subscribers like myself.

From what i gather so far, they're doing a wonderful job and expanding rapidly without losing money. I think there's plenty room for initiatives like that in specific niches as well.

My impression of NYT and The Economist and such is that while they're trying, they're still way too tethered to an older model which, among other things, requires more money for (relatively) more crap. And while on behalf of good journalism I lament the period of turmoil as they fight their fight but eventually disappear, I think it's necessary for more targeted, leaner journalism to take over.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#253

Post by brianwawok »

edwinyzh wrote: post #199
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...

Hence the disvow link button

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#255

Post by A_Crazy_Idea »

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…

Can you explain to me what the "obvious appeal" of AdWords is? A market for words and terms sounds more like a Free-to-play model then an actual legitimate business, why would you pay? Is it so hard to send text and hyperlinks around the internet and have it display on someone's webpage that your willing to compete with random 3rd parties for Google's benefit? Honestly, I cannot fathom why anyone agrees to this. It's not like gentrification actually works on the internet. I mean, without the artificial scarcities you agree to inflict upon yourself for no benefit to anyone but those trying to charge you rent.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#256

Post by brianwawok »

matt4077 wrote: post #195
jondubois wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What product so you sell? If industrial drilling equipment, Facebook is hard. If it's a t-shirt that makes a trendy joke, Facebook will do well.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#257

Post by mercer »

xg15 wrote: post #90
Fiahil wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oversaturated and desensitized, yes, but too few non-technical people are bothered enough to install an ad blocker. This is an issue because the biggest security threats, today, come from ad-network-delivered-junk. It has become so much of an issue that my advice on which antivirus to install has shifted from xxx to uBlock Origin. It's just basic computer hygiene, and I would really like if content creator would move…

I like the irony at that. For a long time you were exactly right and "the consumer wants it this way" was a convenient argument that ad-supported sites could make. Now ad-blocking gets more and more mainstream - and many sites (especially news sites apparently) start to panic, pleading users to disable their ad-blockers or putting up ad-blocker-blockers...

I think that the 'for a long time' part makes it somewhat less ironic.

Things change, and it's perfectly normal that this can cause turmoil and turn winners into losers (and vice versa) until everything stabilizes again... for a while.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#258

Post by ubernostrum »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #239
ubernostrum wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that someone else gaming Google's algorithm becomes my problem and requires me to solve it rather than Google?

For the same reason when some fellow citizen acts against you, you may need to sue them yourself - Google provides a platform with some set of rules, but they can't proactively ensure nobody is doing something malicious to other parties (especially if the malicious act is allowed by the rules), nor they can codify and enforce "don't be an asshole" rule.

Your analogy doesn't really hold up. This isn't another person coming after you directly, it's the other person manipulating a third party to cause the third party to come after you, and the third party saying "not my problem that I'm easy to manipulate like that".

For a criminal-justice-system analogy, it's similar in concept (though not in extremity) to SWATting. And I don't think we want governments to wash their hands of that and say "not our fault our system is abusable that way, it's all on you to do something about it after the fact".

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#259

Post by Raphmedia »

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…

It's a sad situation but I can pay $5 on Fiverr to attack you that way. Google should really handle it better.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#260

Post by ryandrake »

sundvor wrote: post #214
bumblebeard wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I for one will NOT use an Android app if there's no premium, ad free version of one. I'll readily buy the ad-free version if it's any good, and I have the track record to prove it. I've completely given up trying to control the torrent of spammy apps (games) on my son's IPad. His next device will be an Android.

At least within your home or on some other place where you control the network infrastructure, you can use dnsmasq and block many in-app ads at the DNS level.
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