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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

#381

Post by cube00 »

kimi wrote: post #228

We had a similar issue with Reddit, spent $500 and got a lot of clicks - none of them ever did anything else, not even by mistake. When we reported this behavior to Reddit, the rep who helped us set up the campaign just vanished. No answer. After a while, another rep came out and asked if we were interested in advertising on Reddit. Explained the situation and... poof! this other rep disappeared too. My feeling is th…

That's assuming you can get your ad seen, plenty of times I've seen Reddit's own ads for advertising on Reddit and I'll never see my ads. So I'm bidding against Reddit on Reddit's own platform.

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

#382

Post by cube00 »

ketzu wrote: post #271
Oras wrote: post #250

Reading all the comments, it seems quite bleak to advertise. How do indies and SMBs reach audience these days then?

The standard advice I've always read: Get active in the niche for your app/game, be it a subreddit, a discord, tiktok or whatever.

Then you get run out for self promotion.

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

#383

Post by ksajadi »

kimi wrote: post #228

We had a similar issue with Reddit, spent $500 and got a lot of clicks - none of them ever did anything else, not even by mistake. When we reported this behavior to Reddit, the rep who helped us set up the campaign just vanished. No answer. After a while, another rep came out and asked if we were interested in advertising on Reddit. Explained the situation and... poof! this other rep disappeared too. My feeling is th…

Reddit is probably the worst of these ad platforms. We had a simple issue: we couldn't set the account that the ad was coming from to be the correct one (we have two Reddit accounts). That's it! So we sent a support email.

That was the beginning of 4, 45 mins sales calls, with full Powerpoint decks and on the spot commitments from us to reach, spend, etc. At the end of each call the rep would promise us that the account issue is escalated and will be fixed before we launch the campaign and would set the time for the next call.

3 weeks in, the account issue is still not fixed and frankly I cannot trust anything they say about their metrics, impressions, CTR or anything else.

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

#384

Post by cube00 »

Roark66 wrote: post #296

Google ads make absolutely no sense financially. Even for high value items. I recently bought some ads in hope very specific terms that see almost no search traffic will be cheaper (we're talking few hundred searches a month from whole of EU). Google wanted £1.5 per click through. When I set a reasonable cost (0.1£) I got either nothing or generic keywords (which I added as a test). I'm pretty sure no one is actually…

It's somehow very expensive even for keywords that have no current ads so you're not in a real bidding marketplace.

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

#385

Post by cube00 »

jwr wrote: post #267

Every ad system I tried resulted in nearly 100% bot traffic to my site. Google and LinkedIn give you "tools" that will show you various numbers, but I implemented my own conversion tracking, because I didn't trust their numbers. I decided to stop burning money on these ad systems. I'm not sure if they work for anyone at this point, I'm guessing this is more of everybody being convinced they might work and trying to g…

What are you doing instead?

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

#386

Post by varispeed »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #193
varispeed wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suspect that entities affected don't have money for a lawsuit.

This is what class actions are literally for. Yes, I know it sucks that the only people who make money are the lawyers, but it can result in some behavioral change. Google is fine attracting bots when it makes money for itself, but it can clearly detect that bot traffic when it has to pay out. There is likely huge amounts of money in total that Google has collected money from in ad buys but that they could also detec…

How much compensation do you get from a class action? $5? That is only a win for a lawyers. The problem is lack of regulatory action and law enforcement. We all pay taxes for these bodies to protect us and more often than not they collude with corporations and do nothing.

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

#387

Post by dd8601fn »

Anon1096 wrote: post #322
dd8601fn wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well… I’ll remember that I never want to give Liberty Mutual a single dollar. I was never going to give any of the woo-woo secret health nonsense hucksters any money, though.

Before the ad, you had no brand awareness at all of Liberty Mutual. Now, you know their name enough to call them out specifically in a Hacker News comment. Your propensity to buy has improved a lot just based on that fact, regardless of whether you consciously want to avoid them now.

I did know Liberty Mutual. I had business with them.

Now I know them and I’m fucking annoyed that they exist. My “propensity to buy” has not improved.

You can save yourself the trouble of repeating more century old marketing truisms that aren’t. We’ve heard it all before, and it isn’t insight.

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

#388

Post by varispeed »

My story from Facebook ages ago. I was getting healthy organic traffic from Facebook. Thought maybe if I buy ads, I'll get even more? I bought ads and indeed traffic improved. Then I thought the organic traffic I had was enough so I stopped buying ads. Guess what happened? Organic traffic from Facebook tanked and never recovered.

From there on I decided to never buy any ads.

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

#389

Post by brudgers »

fragmede wrote: post #214
brudgers wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet has claimed to be fighting ad fraud for many many years. That is not how an organization fighting ad fraud would structure itself. Alphabet does not have an abundance of technical incompetence. But it does have the strongest of incentives to ensure ad budgets get spent quickly and no meaningful disincentives. I mean what’s the OP going to do, go to Google’s competition?

You mean, Instagram and TikTok, and now, ChatGPT? Absolutely. Depends on your product but Google ain't the only game in town.

Google is what everyone has and where people usually search.

It’s also built into approximately everyone’s phone.

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

#390

Post by tempest_ »

quikoa wrote: post #372
mitxela wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small claims court is designed to minimize costs

Yes and winning from Google in small claims court is definitely possible: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_1... Edit: AI can be a great help here, ask it: - How to prepare your case for your country. - Where to file and how much it going to cost. - Help you find weaknesses in your case and what you can do to fix those. - Rewrite your text in proper legalese (I do recommend to prepare the you…

You might get your 100 dollars but google will ban you / stop doing any business with you the minute you start that so you better be sure you don't need your account or google services going forward.
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