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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

#401

Post by lightedman »

tempest_ wrote: post #390
quikoa wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then you sue them again in small claims court for the damages of not having access to your accounts (to which other online services require/are tied to which are not Google-owned properties) and have the judge force your reinstatement with a warning to Google that such punitive actions taken maliciously against the user will result in a prior fine*exponential multiplicative levied for each occurrence, with the base fine amount being the prior multiplicative fine issued.

That leaves Google with very few chances to fuck up before they're financially wiped out, and this is a ruling you can have issued in a small claims court.

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

#402

Post by inquirerGeneral »

lightedman wrote: post #398
throwuxiytayq wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not attribute malice (or even intention) to which can be explained by Google-level incompetence.

The moment Google removed 'Do No Evil' from their values the only explanation left is pure malice.

[dead]

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

#403

Post by whstl »

Razengan wrote: post #313
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...

Meanwhile, there's rampant ads for scams all over YouTube going on for years

Being outside of the US, most Google ads I see are some kind of finance scam, or scam-adjacent.

And in smaller websites it's mostly Malware and health-related scams.

The reason you don't see these on every website is purely because the website owner decides to block some of those.

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

#405

Post by piker »

jfil wrote: post #352
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…

I've worked in different parts of the online ad industry for years. This is correct: fraud is a systemic and convenient part of the business model. The victims are the advertisers, who's in-house marketers don't know enough to detect/call out fraud. Google itself forces advertisers into fraud-friendly products like PMAX. Then, when you detect the fraud, the hapless account rep says "ummm... maybe try using IP exclusi…

Has anyone ever had any success building a digital products business with pay-per-click ads? We're always tempted and dabble, and every bit of traffic seems accidental, completely disinterested or obviously a spammer clicking around trying to collect the "conversion".

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

#406

Post by bcrl »

chadgpt3 wrote: post #326
baxtr wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google makes a ton of money. It has to come from somewhere… so yes definitely agree that even though it’s hard to imagine for some people in the HN bubble, ads seem to be working for most people.

They are working meaning people keep buying them. This has nothing to do with ROAS. This developer gave Google $220 of revenue.

$220 is irrelevant to Google. The bot farms spend more. Hence, the small honest customer is not worth supporting when the large malicious customer will generate orders of magnitude more revenue. Viewed through the profit incentive, the end result makes perfect sense.

Perverse incentives will only change when regulators are made to care.

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

#407

Post by qlte »

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…

Was there a follow up if he ever managed to collect on the $721 judgment?

EDIT: Ah, missed the follow up link at the end. No, he did not get any money.

Google appealed to a superior court (sending their lawyers this time) and the award was modified to $0.

So he didn't actually win, the online meme that "small claims are the one weird trick to beat the mega corps" doesn't usually hold up to scrutiny. I doubt throwing ChatGPT into the mix would have helped against their in-house counsel.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_2...

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

#408

Post by a123b456c »

carlosjobim wrote: post #375
kimi wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought reddit would have been a sensible place to advertise our b2b product, that caters to a quite technical audience in a way that is not very friendly to Linkedin targeting.

Give affiliates 15% commission for any successful sales they make. Then you don't have to think about marketing and you don't have to throw any money into a black hole. Buying ads is always a scam.

Have you ever heard of affiliate fraud?

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

#409

Post by alt227 »

dwedge wrote: post #337
mitxela wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has that ever happened?

It's a possibility. I don't know about CSAM but I know someone who was arrested for death threats sent to a politician after running a tor exit node. Eventually not charged, but he lost all his computing equipment for a couple of months

> Eventually not charged

Theres your answer.

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

#410

Post by lucashollingshe »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #281
nickabe wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks very much - really means a lot that you enjoyed it, we put a lot of effort into making it.

Drop a link. Don't want to search

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/dayzle-daily-brain-games/id679...
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