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

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421–430 of 434 posts

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

#421
post #250

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

The general problem of how to advertise a small business has never been solved.

I see ads for some local pizza places, as they've learned that can work for a delivery business, but most restaurants have no ads. They don't know of anything that works.

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

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is an overwhelming market leader vertically and horizontally. Not only do they not have to compete with their competition. They don't have to compete for their competition's business partners. They don't have to compete at all. What's more, they're a publicly traded company. That means their primary product is no longer what they sell. Their primary product is stock dividends. That is their primary business no…

> What's more, they're a publicly traded company. That means their primary product is no longer what they sell. Their primary product is stock dividends. That is their primary business now. Whether you're buying a service or a product from Google, you're no longer their true customer. Who is their true customer then?

The same as every publicly held company. The shareholder.

What else did you think the Friedman doctrine meant?

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

#423
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liability when it happens? Don't all water companies do it? And while it may point at what we could do with Google and the likes, the risk profile is still a bit different (make many people ill or die vs "unknowingly" stealing some money).

My comment was meant to be sarcasm. I see that didn’t come through.

It did partially, which is why I have the second part — even if we applied the same rule, it's not really apples-to-apples.

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have zero expectations of any business. If they have an expectation to be paid then they need to offer something of value. Their costs to operate are not my concern.

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.

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

#425
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

How would you force the judge to do that? Has this strategy ever worked for anyone you can cite? Have you tried it yourself? Otherwise, I'm not sure why just being able to imagine a knock out David vs. Goliath win against Google has any value whatsoever as a viable legal strategy.

"How would you force the judge to do that?"

You read my wording wrong - you wouldn't force the judge, the judge forces Google.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's more, they're a publicly traded company. That means their primary product is no longer what they sell. Their primary product is stock dividends. That is their primary business now. Whether you're buying a service or a product from Google, you're no longer their true customer. Who is their true customer then?

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.

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

#427
post #277

I've been in go to market for the better part of 20 years now (anyone remember the DigitalOcean youtube ads of the 2012-2014 era?), paid online advertising has basically gone to shit, it started about 6 years ago, but over the past 3-4 years outside of linkedin it's effectively pointless, over 55% of Americans run ad blockers now and around 40% globally - on top of that, what you do get it mostly just... bots. In Jan…

I always like to link an AdContrarian post https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-inescapable-lo...

This blog makes a good point: governments are already overworked dealing with pedos, terrorists and spies. Ad fraud is a victimless crime that voters don't care about so in all likelihood a low priority.

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

#428
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.

Reddit is probably 80% bots by now, you thought wrong

[dead]

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

#429
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 hope Reddit is not charging advertisers per ad video play. As a mobile reddit user, I’ve noticed that the app treats ads differently than regular posts. They are more sensitive to taps than regular posts and I frequently accidentally trigger ad videos playing by scrolling past them but I never accidentally trigger regular videos.

I've seen this same thing on Instagram. Scrolling normally and then all of the sudden the latest advertiser's site is open. The only interaction they get is the close button. It can't be great for figuring if you're targeting potential sales correctly.

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

#430
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was meant to be sarcasm. I see that didn’t come through.

It did partially, which is why I have the second part — even if we applied the same rule, it's not really apples-to-apples.

It isn’t. But it should be.

I find online advertising crooked as hell. Google charges by the impression and knowingly allows huge percentages of fake impressions. How is that anything other than fraud?

It’s not because it’s online advertising. And that sucks.

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