GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account • Hacker News Board

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#41

Post by nostromo » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:11 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #35

jonknee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct follow up with people is expensive. From the WSJ: > GM spends about $40 million on its Facebook presence. About $10 million of that is paid to Facebook for advertising, the rest covers content created for the site, agencies that manage the content and daily maintenance of GM's pages, people familiar with the figures said.

That is insane. Only a bloated bohemoth could manage to spend $30 million on its Facebook-focused HR people. I admit I've never worked at GM, so if someone can tell me why I'm wrong, please do.

Their page has (roughly) 300k followers. That's $100 per reachable user per year, which is insane.

If they were using that additional $10mm to get the 300k followers to begin with, that's an even worse indictment of FB advertising for traditional brands.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#42

Post by alan_cx » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #37

jacquesm wrote: post #16

When you're close to an IPO you are very vulnerable to hard-ball negotiation tactics. This could easily be the endgame of 'reduce our rates or else'.

Or "Give us some stock at the opening price, or else." There is no way for GM to pull this kind of maneuver at this time without looking suspicious.

They have, and it does?

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#43

Post by snambi » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

Its obvious that Facebook ads don't work. How often you see a relevant Ad in Facebook? Almost never. So, advertisers show interesting images, but when you click on that image, it is some non-sense website. Facebook has some private information about the user, other than that FB has no clue what is my mood or what I am looking for. Its no wonder GM pulled out of Facebook.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#44

Post by WrkInProgress » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #35

jonknee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct follow up with people is expensive. From the WSJ: > GM spends about $40 million on its Facebook presence. About $10 million of that is paid to Facebook for advertising, the rest covers content created for the site, agencies that manage the content and daily maintenance of GM's pages, people familiar with the figures said.

That is insane. Only a bloated bohemoth could manage to spend $30 million on its Facebook-focused HR people. I admit I've never worked at GM, so if someone can tell me why I'm wrong, please do.

At first glance, that number across as absurdly high but they do mention "covers content created for the site".

It could very well include the cost of creation of video content, contest giveaways, promotional prizes and such.

Once you add all that all up, $30 million doesn't seem as far fetched .....

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#45

Post by rweba » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:14 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #35

jonknee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct follow up with people is expensive. From the WSJ: > GM spends about $40 million on its Facebook presence. About $10 million of that is paid to Facebook for advertising, the rest covers content created for the site, agencies that manage the content and daily maintenance of GM's pages, people familiar with the figures said.

That is insane. Only a bloated bohemoth could manage to spend $30 million on its Facebook-focused HR people. I admit I've never worked at GM, so if someone can tell me why I'm wrong, please do.

One FT employee easily costs more than $100,000 when you include benefits, expenses and so on.

Also GM sells a few dozens models of cars, I could easily see the salaries for the staff who do daily updates for all these models and the advertising agencies who manage it costing 30 million or more.

Also GM has annual revenue of almost 160 BILLION, 30 million is a drop in the bucket in their marketing budget.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#46

Post by TommyDANGerous » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:15 PM UTC

I hardly notice Facebook ads. However, I think the smaller your company, the larger Facebook ads may have an impact.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#47

Post by 10098 » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:17 PM UTC

The thing is, they don't. They really don't. I hardly even notice them, like there's some kind of mental block that prevents the brain from perceiving the ads. Same thing applies to Google ads, I completely ignore them. Has anyone else noticed such behavior in themselves?

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#48

Post by gcb » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:18 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #35

jonknee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct follow up with people is expensive. From the WSJ: > GM spends about $40 million on its Facebook presence. About $10 million of that is paid to Facebook for advertising, the rest covers content created for the site, agencies that manage the content and daily maintenance of GM's pages, people familiar with the figures said.

That is insane. Only a bloated bohemoth could manage to spend $30 million on its Facebook-focused HR people. I admit I've never worked at GM, so if someone can tell me why I'm wrong, please do.

You never worked with advertising.

Advertising agency doesn't sell you a great campaign, idea or pretty pictures.

they sell you media. with a HUGE markup.

10mil media can cost way more than 30mil if bought from an agency creating the 'creatives' (in the case of car ads, a picture of the car, or a movie of it cruising on a road where the art director likes to take vacations)

30mil for 10mil of media, GM had a good deal.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#49

Post by dkrich » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:18 PM UTC

bgilroy26 wrote: post #40

bradgessler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... or Facebook ads don't work.

Not with timing like this, which would create such bad blood. This news item has an ulterior motive. Not that that precludes the possibility that Facebook ads don't work.

Well if Facebook ads DO work (at least for GM) I don't believe they would have pulled their campaign no matter what ulterior motives they may have. Sales are sales.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#50

Post by alain94040 » Tue, May 15, 2012, 9:18 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #26

dneb7 wrote: post #5

I certainly didn't have a $10MM spend, but I also had dismal results for my B2B campaign. My takeaway is FB is purely a social place where people unwind and don't want to do any 'work' -- whether that is considering a product for their job, or the effort involved in considering a large purchase as rio517 mentions.

Any thoughts on better choices for advertising B2B offerings? Has anybody here tried LinkedIn for that, for example?

I tried all 3 (Google, Facebook and LinkedIn). For my circumstances, Facebook won by a mile. Google did ok. LinkedIn was a complete disaster.

http://blog.foundrs.com/2011/04/01/sell-your-google-stock-li... (the blog post shows early numbers, the real numbers, after longer experimentation, show the exact same results)