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I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

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Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#181

Post by dspillett »

cube00 wrote: post #106
dave_sid wrote: post #28

Google ads are a con. Meta ads are a con. If someone tells you you’re just not doing it right yet, they’re probably trying to sell you something.

Add Reddit Ads to that, all the alleged clicks not one comment or conversion. I get my app is probably bad but you'd expect at least one comment out of 100 "clicks" to say something.

Even with certified real humans who actively clicked rather than being counted one if the many ways these counts are padded accidentally (or not so accidentally), you might be expecting far too much of their attention span when expecting a full 1% to care enough to think long enough to respond before scrolling on. It is worse these days than it used to be, because many who might previously have bothered may instead assume they'd probably be taking to a bot.

Unless you somehow insult their favourite entertainment franchise / political party / deity / etc., or praise one of the same that they don't like. That will get you piles of responses, though not in a way useful to your app!

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#182

Post by DANmode »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #176
DANmode wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandating Google choose the “one right” link is the failure point, here. (Not because I disagree.) Similar problems with mandating that they track what’s considered a competitor.

> Mandating Google choose the “one right” link is the failure point, here. (Not because I disagree.) I'm talking about the actual search results. They already do that part. > Similar problems with mandating that they track what’s considered a competitor. Well I said fair not mandatory, but they make enough money off these ads that they could handle it being mandatory.

Besides “I’m Feeling Lucky” and new AI offerings, Google specifically does not purport to tell you the one true link!

It ranks based on likelihood of what you’re search for - and yes, that’s different!

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#183

Post by tough »

patrickdavey wrote: post #157

I'm sure this is a basic question I should already understand, but, what is actually in it for the bot farm? They spend your money (annoying), but, does Google actually pay them somehow? I don't get what they are "farming"

Yes AdSense pays 3rd party publishers locating your ads on their site. They fake their site click through rate with bots, and get paid as if they had real users clicking the ads

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#184

Post by iammrpayments »

dave_sid wrote: post #28

Google ads are a con. Meta ads are a con. If someone tells you you’re just not doing it right yet, they’re probably trying to sell you something.

Spent a lot of money on meta ads and it worked well for a long time.

What doesn’t work is the nonsense people try to teach about how to optimize it.

It’s what got me into programming in first place, since most strategies can be automated, but there are still companies paying money to people to manage their ad spend.

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#186

Post by weare138 »

dangero wrote: post #113
yunusabd wrote: post #87

My favorite story: 1. Dev publishes app with Google Admob integration to the Play Store. 2. Buys Google Ads to drive traffic to the app. 3. Google Admob bans his account for invalid traffic. https://www.reddit.com/r/admob/comments/1vzg3fu/i_paid_googl...

Same thing happened to us. We were large enough to have an admob rep who reached out to the IVT team for help. After our first appeal was rejected, our rep negotiated a second appeal attempt but he said “This time make sure you take full responsibility for the IVT getting through. Funny part to me was Google was the only network bidding on these bots while others must have detected something and stayed out. We submit…

I keep hearing this same story over and over. It's starting to sound like that's just Google's business model.

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#187

Post by stingraycharles »

mitxela wrote: post #112
Grimblewald wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also why hyperscalers are paying folks to host gpu clusters in their homes. its to get at tgeir IP, it has nothing to do with space, cooling, etc.

No that makes no sense. They only need a tiny device to act as a proxy. It makes no sense to colocate the expensive GPUs

Yeah, the usual approach here is to offer a free VPN service, and then piggyback traffic over the user’s internet provider. Much, much more scalable and cheaper than offering to put GPUs at a user’s home.

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#188

Post by killbot5000 »

ksajadi wrote: post #171
dave_sid wrote: post #28

Google ads are a con. Meta ads are a con. If someone tells you you’re just not doing it right yet, they’re probably trying to sell you something.

Maybe I’ve just been unlucky for 14 years but ads almost never work (as much as you pay for them). Ad business is the best business: you pay for something no one can reliably verify or measure. But you still pay because there is something somewhere with some correlational relationship with an uplift in some of your metrics and you’re afraid to turn it off. So you just keep paying. If you login to the admin side of an…

I always wonder who the hell is clicking these ads. I skip all you tube ads (thanks Adblock)… I never click banner ads on principle. I assume anything paying for my eyeball time is a scam.

So who is this shit working on? These companies must have detailed profiles on “people who do what we tell them” as a whole class of people. Scary.

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#189

Post by Choco31415 »

calmworm wrote: post #169
econ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had huge click farms back in the days. Today the fraud is perhaps more obvious. YT has served me the same 20 min ad 200+ times over the last few weeks. I let the entire thing play 10 times and 50 times didn't press skip for the first minute (or the view doesn't count) It's so annoying Ive reduced video watching by 80-90% The idea they have someone pay for this in the hope I will buy the product? Or do people real…

Is this a typo? 20 min ad?! I don’t use YouTube.

I’ve seen the intro to an audiobook be used as an ad.

Re: I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots

#190

Post by jonasdegendt »

ForHackernews wrote: post #76
nekusar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And the pay for these things is "access to 500+ TB Jellyfin-like movie services for free" Of course, it's all pirated out of country. And the pay is being a residential proxy. And piracy being the only way to actually own, I'm not imaging this will stop anytime soon.

Wait, so I can have free movies and subvert the adtech business model at the same time? What's the catch?

Anyone can buy traffic on the proxy, not just click fraud, but cc fraud et al as well. Caveat emptor, it’s really not worth it compared to setting up a 3 USD per month Hetzner proxy box yourself, if you’re looking to pirate movies.

For some more context: We run a business based on data scraping and metered residential proxies have never been cheaper. Countries that used to be 10 USD/GB just ten years ago are down to 1 USD.

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