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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

#271

Post by sogen »

abalashov wrote: post #234
nrjdhsbsid wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked your site. It's well put together but the language is far too technical for AdWords. Engineers don't usually make the kind of business decisions to buy these things at larger companies, it's VP level people. Find your kinds of customers and tailor a landing page with stuff that they want, instead of having the site explain everything like a users manual. Ex: Calls centers do not care at all about the oth…

Thank you for the suggestions! The intentionally deep technical content of the site may be motivated by reasoning backward to your thought process: Usually it's the technical guys, tasked with researching and finding a product that fits the requirements, who find the site and forward the link to their managers. The managers have no idea what any of it means, but "it looks like good stuff", so "contact them and find o…

AFAIK Technical information is usually downloaded in PDF white papers.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#272

Post by nkkollaw »

I have definitely seen the same thing.

I would like to add that having done both, ads in foreign languages are clicked on by bots many times less than ads in English.

Google Adwords seems to be almost a scam. If you don't disable them, most of your clicks will come from Nigeria, Afghanistan, and other random countries, with Google doing nothing about it.

I've had success with Facebook in Polish and Italian, ads in English seemed to be mostly bots.

Pretty sad for people who spend thousands without knowing.

I guess content marketing is the way to go, most people know this. Write good stuff that is useful to your audience, and share it on Reddit. I've done it in the past, with great results.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#273

Post by mistermann »

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…

This article seems to demonstrate that bots are clicking links though, any comments on that? I mean, if it's true, and those are costing you money, you better be able to design some pretty effective campaigns with that extra overhead.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#274

Post by jdietrich »

ubernostrum wrote: post #258
TeMPOraL wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Identity theft is a perfectly reasonable analogy. If someone steals my identity and ruins my credit rating, the onus is on me to inform the credit reference agency. It'd be nice if Equifax could telepathically divine whether a credit transaction was legitimate or not, but it simply isn't possible. Google are similarly unable to distinguish between a blackhat SEO scheme and this sort of weird SEO DDoS.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#275

Post by agumonkey »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #250
agumonkey wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sorry, I got caught in my own head. I think more than brand, it's shelves that drive the decision for such commodities. Whatever is close and in good supply I'll take without too much attention paid to the brand. Or brand reputation when I'm feel picky. But never advertising itself.

You cannot escape the influence of advertising. To think otherwise is self-deception bordering on ignorance.

My consumerism seems to be restricted to a few kind of products for which I feel about for very specific reasons.

I'm still subject to influence, because I have eyes, but it's mostly negatively, advertising is a cheap trick void of information to me. I can't buy something because a handsome male pretended to use it in a video.

Even those with informations are often lying to put a spin on their product. Health products with a new molecule. Green vehicles. etc

Plus if you know a bit about production you know brands are often using the same materials with a few superficially differenciating details; so in the end.. same product.

I still have a technical mind, and it's my main mode of functionning. Influence can still be there but I'd bet 10$ it's barely significant.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#276

Post by robotresearcher »

ubernostrum wrote: post #236
reefoctopus wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Why is it that if someone steals my wallet in the street I have to describe them to the police?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#277

Post by stepanhruda »

elastic_church wrote: post #182
stepanhruda wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You incorrectly reference zero sum games (actually, negative sum because of the middle man), where winners' gains come entirely from the losers. Ads are definitely not that, they are a regular market with supply and demand. It seems that the top actors get a disproportionate amount of profits though.

or I correctly made an analogy because of the similarities in things that are otherwise dissimilar. Ironic because you pointed out the similarity after deciding to write about the dissimilarities.

Disagree. You called out a pattern that has characteristics, but ads don't match the characteristics. There is a superset of characteristics that this pattern falls into as well, but now you are making a misleading analogy.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#278

Post by abalashov »

GFischer wrote: post #262
nrjdhsbsid wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked your site. It's well put together but the language is far too technical for AdWords. Engineers don't usually make the kind of business decisions to buy these things at larger companies, it's VP level people. Find your kinds of customers and tailor a landing page with stuff that they want, instead of having the site explain everything like a users manual. Ex: Calls centers do not care at all about the oth…

I second that opinion. The site has a good technical explanation, but it doesn't have a "value proposition" - why should I, as a manager, buy your product? (I guess it makes calls cheaper? Is it needed for what?)

The nature of the organic audience is such that if they found their way to the site in the first place, they are very likely highly specialised in IP telephony and know the answers to these questions. They are typically looking for more details, not a gentle layman's introduction. When they contact me, 90%+ of the time they have highly specific questions, and there is no need to convey what the product is or what it does in broad terms.

There is a market segment of relative laypeople who do not know what this product is, yet could benefit from it nevertheless. However, it is very small and does not represent the most desired customer base. Imagine selling an industrial control mechanism used in water treatment plants. You probably aren't looking to target the product page to people who don't already work in one.

By the same token, a successful ad campaign in this case would be one that effectively targets the search terms used by people that by and large already know what they are looking for, and steering them in my direction.

On the other hand, you both have a point. I am probably underestimating the number of managers looking at the site who, despite working in the VoIP service provider industry, find this all to be Greek. And it's probably equally true that I am reasoning backward from a self-selecting group of customers--the ones to whom I do manage to sell. In other words, survivorship bias, where the survivors are those not spooked by my esoteric content.

So, fair points!

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#279

Post by abalashov »

sogen wrote: post #271
abalashov wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the suggestions! The intentionally deep technical content of the site may be motivated by reasoning backward to your thought process: Usually it's the technical guys, tasked with researching and finding a product that fits the requirements, who find the site and forward the link to their managers. The managers have no idea what any of it means, but "it looks like good stuff", so "contact them and find o…

AFAIK Technical information is usually downloaded in PDF white papers.

A lot of times, nobody reads these white papers, but there is a huge credibility boost from having them. It says that there's something substantive here. "Sounds like good stuff."

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#280

Post by mratzloff »

ubernostrum wrote: post #236
reefoctopus wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

You are the most motivated party.
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