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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

#431

Post by moeadham »

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…

ugh PMAX is such a scam. I can’t believe there is a PM somewhere getting paid good money to completely light Googles’ reputation on fire.

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

#432

Post by moeadham »

tommek4077 wrote: post #331
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…

Same here. Most of the bots didn't even load anything besides the html, no js execution, no clicks...

I understand the mobile bot farms monetization (publish app with ads, have bot farm click on ads in your app).

I don’t understand the reddit ad clicks though. How does the bot farm profit? Is there some way to earn money hosting reddit ads?

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

#433

Post by camkego »

tyre wrote: post #222
camkego wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the marketer is an employee or a consultant, is it in their interest to show that the ad-spend they are controlling is high ROI, or low ROI. Maybe this is a cynical take, but, if they get to the bottom of things, and show their boss/client that the ad-spend is not returning so much, it seems it would portend bad things for the marketer. I really don't know, and it seems like a very hard problem. Maybe this is the…

That's not how ad performance is measured. Your ROI is based on end conversions. You need to know if your leads are _good_, not just plentiful. A company that doesn't do this at the start will figure it out pretty quickly.

Ideally that would be the case that all ad-spend can be tracked through end conversions, and for many businesses it can be. But for much of the corporate world, you don't know where your end conversions come from. (Think Nike shoes, etc) It's estimated about that 35% to 45% of all digital ad spend goes to brand awareness, video reach, and other upper-funnel methods where direct conversion tracking isn't possible.

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

#434

Post by mitxela »

calmworm wrote: post #424
mitxela wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're not offering something of value why are you using the thing that you say doesn't have value?

I don’t. Please see original comment.

Well this discussion about getting YouTube premium is clearly aimed at people who use YouTube but without premium, not people who don't use YouTube at all.

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

#436

Post by jwr »

cube00 wrote: post #385
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?

Complaining on HN :-)

More seriously, I have not found a solution.

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

#437

Post by MrSkelter »

robertlagrant wrote: post #426
da_chicken wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same as every publicly held company. The shareholder. What else did you think the Friedman doctrine meant?

Friedman was a very smart man. I think he knew what a customer is.

That’s just unfounded hero worship. You need to provide evidence he was right.

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

#438

Post by tommek4077 »

moeadham wrote: post #432
tommek4077 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Most of the bots didn't even load anything besides the html, no js execution, no clicks...

I understand the mobile bot farms monetization (publish app with ads, have bot farm click on ads in your app). I don’t understand the reddit ad clicks though. How does the bot farm profit? Is there some way to earn money hosting reddit ads?

I dont understand either. Maybe depleting budgets of competitors?

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

#439

Post by dave_sid »

G3nD wrote: post #39
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.

Are pretty much all ecommerce brands wasting their money on Meta ads? Seems hard to believe.

Probably. And probably hard for them to believe too.

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

#440

Post by Grombobulous »

qlte wrote: post #415
Grombobulous wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small claims court!

...which Google then wins on appeal, such as in the follow up from an example someone posted above of a "win" in small claims. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_2...

If you lose on appeal perhaps your case wasn’t that strong to begin with.

If I were the author if that article I would rest easy knowing that Google blew 5 figures on lawyers to recover $800 and enhance my journalism.

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