I tried Adwords for search again recently after several years. There was a decent number of clicks, and the cost per "action" seemed very reasonable, where for me, the action is clicking on the download link from the landing page to download the installer for our game. The only problem is that tracking the IP's, 90% of the traffic from Adwords that downloaded the installer never actually ran the installer. Organic traffic usually has much more than 50% of the people who download it, run it. Is it a bunch of robots driving clicks and then clicking randomly on links on the landing page? Seems really suspicious.
If I try to optimize for download volume, that's all I get - bots after bots. Can rack up thousands of downloads for <10 cents per download without any impact on how many users actually use or rate the app.
I found that getting a good ROI required setting higher price targets and optimizing for in-app actions. That's really hard to do well and not very reliable, but it helped.
Only time I’ve ever used AdWords we got a lot of sign ups, but all from very random Gmail accounts. They were all bots. I either don’t get how AdWords works or it’s entirely useless for SaaS businesses.
I've had issues with ads on Adwords, where 99% of the clicks where from bots. However, 50% engagement after a signup or download is normal! For some reason users signup or download stuff without thinking, like an web reflex of some sort. Sadly 50% of people will have no idea what to do after signing up or downloading. You can however get this number up to 90% if you have a simple, clear and easy instructions what to do after downloading it!
I've tried AdWords for a couple of projects and have had very similar experiences. It has always been a total waste of money for me and I'm having a hard time believing that it's actual people, i.e. potential customers clicking on these things. The behavior of the people coming from AdWords is always completely different from those coming through other sources, as if they just clicked on it by accident or as if they're just bots.
- When you say Adwords for search, you mean google.com and not display right? I see a bunch of what you describe across the display network any would only recommend running white-listed sites if doing the latter as there is much encouragement of fat finger and kids who press anything etc here.
- Are you allowing search partners? Id going google search I would strongly recommend sticking to google only as there is often more dodgy around partners but this is auto included in setup.
- What kind of KW and variance: Again assuming search, who big are your KW lists and negatives? Apologies if asking the obvious but is this consistent via KW?
- Geographic restriction: Have you broken the effect down geographically? This can lead to huge variance, and to a letter extent times your running.
- Are the ads pushy? Google and some people will put a bunch of effort towards you getting higher click through but fight that. You need to stay withing bands but too many ads are for an off the cuff example; 'Amazing game that will blow you away" gets clicks whereas you'll perform better by setting expectation with the boring 'Download and install this game' as your headline type thing... naturally if bots it wont help.
Game install can be tricky, from what I've seen it's competitive and low margin which is a challenging start point.
Try adding more good friction to your user acquisition funnel. If someone really wants to try your game, have them sign up with a valid email.
It seems counter-intuitive 'Why would I add more work for people who want to use my product?' - but the truth is you're just creating more work and wasting resources qualifying poor leads (in your case bots).
Sorry for my ignorance, but wouldn't that be an indication of, you know, fraud? And if it were, would it even matter if it were Google's bots or someone else's?
I never really understood how Google could ever guarantee that ad clicks are real and not fake, as any sufficiently sophisticated robot will have click patterns that are indistinguishable from humans. I bet designing such sophisticated robots is an industry on its own.
I'm skeptical of articles that talk about how well they did something but don't provide the actual numbers.
There is no mention of actual ROI, conversions, traffic, and so forth.
Overall, I'm pretty skeptical of the true return that marketing campaigns can generate. When you calculate the full cost not just of the marketing but you include margins and the full lifetime value of the customer then you get a real sense.
The thing that stood out to me is the first sentence, that the person had an unlimited budget. With that in mind, basically makes me believe they weren't that focused on the true profitability of the spend.
You noted a few interesting things that I wanted to call out as a marketer, like budget.
No one has a $3m Google Ads budget for something that doesn't work already. I've run campaigns for brands that lead the market and for new businesses that have no brand recognition at all--the difference is night and day. Should founders run to Gmail ads because of this? Probably not.
Assuming the campaigns are still profitable, doubling the budget is great. I hope they really did well. But what does this really tell us? What can a startup or small business founder learn from this? Not much.
A worthwhile question whenever a marketer is talking about marketing: Is this mainly self-marketing? If so it's worth treating with the same skepticism that you'd use with any other advertisement.
Hey there, thanks for your comment! You're totally right to be skeptical. I didn't include any numbers on ROI for 2 reasons:
- This was my previous job, and I don't have the data anymore :)
- I don't want to reveal numbers that could harm that company or inform their competitors.
I will say I was 100% focused on profitability. I'd be a pretty shitty marketer if I doubled spend without focusing on profit.
I’m generally skeptical of content marketing that is mostly comprised of vague self-praise. I don’t know why this is on the HN front page. Though I guess arguably that’s a point in favor of their marketing competence.
I enjoy reading posts like this because I've been blocking ads and avoiding "marketing tech" companies for so long that I don't even know what's going on in the ad world anymore. It's interesting to see that not a whole lot has changed in the last 5+ years with respect to platforms and strategies.
Same here - I glanced over the article and was confused why there was a part for Gmail. I thought to myself : "but gmail doesn't have ads?".
Which makes me wonder even more why 75%+ of the population doesn't have adblock themselves?
Weird that you get downvoted when this is probably the default experience for a majority of people on HN. It's probably also a major problem for anyone with entrepreneurial aspirations because we just don't have a truly full understanding of the digital environments most would-be customers live in.
It's nice to see an adwords article that finally embraces CPA bidding. It really is king. I've been doing this for over a decade and was very hesitant to use it but it really beats everything out there.
One thing he doesn't mention is the landing page experience. It affects both your quality score which can have big impacts on CPA as well as your conversion rate.
Don't need to crap on Quantic and the like as much though, they do have some things that Google doesn't.
Some people are commenting on him not giving specific advice for making the creative. As some have pointed out, a whole article could be written about that, or more realistically, entire libraries of books. In short he is talking about ad copywriting, it's a whole discipline that takes years of experience and learning to get good at.
> "Not sure why people have issue with "creative" as a noun, this has been the standard in advertising for decades."
Probably the same problem some people have with the term "Human Resources". If you can be reduced to a "Resource" then you're basically just meat (or it can feel that way).
When you use the term "creative" as a noun that way it sounds like a brain in a jar, and if the brain misbehaves, it can be replaced.
I'd like to remind people how bad the "daily budget" is in AdWords.
The design of the budget system is in Google's favour, not yours, and if you don't understand that, you'll end up paying much more than you need to.
If you think setting the budget to half is a way to halve your ad spend and get half the number of clicks, you're right, but you're also naïve.
If Google thinks your current rate of spend is going to exceed the daily budget, they'll effectively deactivate your ad for random impressions, leading to less spend.
but that isn't the best strategy. The best strategy is to lower your bids to win fewer auctions if you want to spend less. That way, you can spend half as much, but get more ROI, since the Google AI will be only showing your ad to those most likely to be interested in it.
Has anyone ever created a psychological profile of people who click on ads? I've never clicked on an ad, so I assume my psychological profile would show that I'm not the kind of person that would be inclined to do so. But clearly there must be people who do click on ads. Who are these people and what is their psychological profile?
From my small sample size POV, it might be related to people who like browsing/window shopping.
Personally I don't like these things because I know what I want before I buy it and I research almost everything I buy, and I probably have some anti-consumer bent deep down in my belly that stigmatizes shopping for the sake of shopping.
But not everyone is like this. I've heard people say they like ads before, and AFAIK it's usually clothing ads.
Now that facebook has embedded ads that get past OOTB ad-blocker and are super targeted to me, I've actually clicked on a couple ads that have intrigued me, knowing I'd not buy it but interested in what their pitch was. Most of those were kickstarter projects or some kind of "adventure gear".
I know people who click on the first "result" of google search most of the time just because it is convenient. The psychological profile would be something like "Not interested in boring details like is something a paid ad or an actual search result. Just want to get to the site they want as easy as possible."
I've always been so interested in this as well, I also have never once (intentionally that is) clicked on an ad in my entire life. I can actually see myself doing so if the product was something I was interested in, but it almost never is. I've found I actually tend to think less of a company if I'm seeing a lot of their ads. I don't know if I've ever met anyone who has told me that they clicked on ads. I have no idea who these people are. Most of my friends even non-technical ones now, use ad-blockers by default.
Sometimes this will turn into anger toward a brand even, like when I'm visiting family over the holidays and I momentarily remember just how bad cable television ads are. I just start to legitimately hate a company because of their ads. I wonder how many companies calculate value lost from an ad because of annoyed people.
"This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small fee if you choose to purchase something."
The author is spending $6M a year on ads and is generating substantially more revenue than that, they claim. Why are they bothering with spare-change Amazon affiliate links? If they can get revenue like that, they should be making tons of money with their day job. What's wrong with this picture?
Hi everyone! Author here. I'm humbled that someone felt this was HackerNews worthy, really unexpected! I'll do my best to respond to comments, but if I don't get to yours feel free to drop me an email, link is on the website.
He mentions YouTube is cheap. I wonder if the existence of YouTube Premium is partly responsible for that? I would think the Premium users may be among the most desirable and those users have hidden themselves from him.
> The difficulty and cost associated with creating video ads is exactly why Youtube is still a hidden gem.
These days many top performing video ads are the ones that are made to look amateur/cheap. And it's not just the guru course ads. The native vlogger-style ad is often more engaging on a platform filled with vloggers. High production value "professional" ads have traditionally been created to lend credibility & authority to the brand. But if their audience now trusts "influencers" more than big brands, what's the harm in testing a TON of simple video creatives with clever scripts.
I've even seen this style now in offline commercials.
The company I work for spends very substantial amounts( for its size) on Google Ads. It does the trick but it's like putting yourself on crack.You become dependant and somehow convince yourself that you are being very smart by doing so.
I wouldn't knock tools like Marin/kenshoo too bad. They really do help you scale if you're taking spend way past $6m.
The target market there is different though. Think instead of a single company spending $6m on their ads, more like an agency spending $60m++ on 10++ different companies' ads.
Major props to this guy for doing so well in house though.
The fact the google ads doesn't allow to do a real location targeting but will show ads to anyone "interested" in that location is usually a non-starter for me.
Having people all over the world shown an ad for a specifically localized shop ? No thanks !
For more online businesses, the results are indeed quite decent !
Our company spent over $3mm last year and this article is spot on. On the Adwords side it really is that simple - test tons of creatives and use CPA bidding.
The third party services aren't much help. Google has a lot of great in-house support to ramp up your Adspend once you get noticed. Not sure what the target is, but we seem to get a new rep every few months who has new suggestions.
I have no experience with Youtube, but that is highly interesting.
If Adwords isn't working for you, there is a ton to dive into. Could be your website, could be your product. If you have a competitor obviously succeeding in the space with heavy Adwords spend the fault is probably on your end (unless they're just pissing away money, but how long does that go on for?).
Dumb question but does anybody know what is Creative ? Is that a software or a generic term for a creative edge - like getting the right slogans and correct catch phrases to grab somebody's attention.
[+] [-] JeffL|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] es7|6 years ago|reply
If I try to optimize for download volume, that's all I get - bots after bots. Can rack up thousands of downloads for <10 cents per download without any impact on how many users actually use or rate the app.
I found that getting a good ROI required setting higher price targets and optimizing for in-app actions. That's really hard to do well and not very reliable, but it helped.
[+] [-] ryanSrich|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] z3t4|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gas9S9zw3P9c|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gustomaximus|6 years ago|reply
- When you say Adwords for search, you mean google.com and not display right? I see a bunch of what you describe across the display network any would only recommend running white-listed sites if doing the latter as there is much encouragement of fat finger and kids who press anything etc here.
- Are you allowing search partners? Id going google search I would strongly recommend sticking to google only as there is often more dodgy around partners but this is auto included in setup.
- What kind of KW and variance: Again assuming search, who big are your KW lists and negatives? Apologies if asking the obvious but is this consistent via KW?
- Geographic restriction: Have you broken the effect down geographically? This can lead to huge variance, and to a letter extent times your running.
- Are the ads pushy? Google and some people will put a bunch of effort towards you getting higher click through but fight that. You need to stay withing bands but too many ads are for an off the cuff example; 'Amazing game that will blow you away" gets clicks whereas you'll perform better by setting expectation with the boring 'Download and install this game' as your headline type thing... naturally if bots it wont help.
Game install can be tricky, from what I've seen it's competitive and low margin which is a challenging start point.
[+] [-] capkutay|6 years ago|reply
It seems counter-intuitive 'Why would I add more work for people who want to use my product?' - but the truth is you're just creating more work and wasting resources qualifying poor leads (in your case bots).
[+] [-] sida|6 years ago|reply
e.g. each install contains a unique slug, when the installer is opened you use the unique slug to know where it is coming from?
[+] [-] wodenokoto|6 years ago|reply
Don’t underestimate fat-fingering
[+] [-] 101404|6 years ago|reply
Maybe a link to some sort of "app store" (or whatever its called on Windows) would be more convincing?
[+] [-] XCSme|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FpUser|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LunaSea|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qiguai|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsp1984|6 years ago|reply
I never really understood how Google could ever guarantee that ad clicks are real and not fake, as any sufficiently sophisticated robot will have click patterns that are indistinguishable from humans. I bet designing such sophisticated robots is an industry on its own.
[+] [-] flatTheCurve|6 years ago|reply
Got a bunch of phone numbers that wanted our service. Only 1 person was interested, but didn't sign up.
[+] [-] raiyu|6 years ago|reply
There is no mention of actual ROI, conversions, traffic, and so forth.
Overall, I'm pretty skeptical of the true return that marketing campaigns can generate. When you calculate the full cost not just of the marketing but you include margins and the full lifetime value of the customer then you get a real sense.
The thing that stood out to me is the first sentence, that the person had an unlimited budget. With that in mind, basically makes me believe they weren't that focused on the true profitability of the spend.
[+] [-] everythingswan|6 years ago|reply
No one has a $3m Google Ads budget for something that doesn't work already. I've run campaigns for brands that lead the market and for new businesses that have no brand recognition at all--the difference is night and day. Should founders run to Gmail ads because of this? Probably not.
Assuming the campaigns are still profitable, doubling the budget is great. I hope they really did well. But what does this really tell us? What can a startup or small business founder learn from this? Not much.
[+] [-] wpietri|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicklafferty|6 years ago|reply
- This was my previous job, and I don't have the data anymore :) - I don't want to reveal numbers that could harm that company or inform their competitors.
I will say I was 100% focused on profitability. I'd be a pretty shitty marketer if I doubled spend without focusing on profit.
[+] [-] robertlagrant|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prostheticvamp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianamartin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdorazio|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bishonen88|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arkitaip|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canadianwriter|6 years ago|reply
One thing he doesn't mention is the landing page experience. It affects both your quality score which can have big impacts on CPA as well as your conversion rate.
Not sure why people have issue with "creative" as a noun, this has been the standard in advertising for decades. Hell, it's in the dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creative
Don't need to crap on Quantic and the like as much though, they do have some things that Google doesn't.
Some people are commenting on him not giving specific advice for making the creative. As some have pointed out, a whole article could be written about that, or more realistically, entire libraries of books. In short he is talking about ad copywriting, it's a whole discipline that takes years of experience and learning to get good at.
[+] [-] eximius|6 years ago|reply
Most people aren't in advertising. It is a surprising use of a common word. I still twitch when I hear 'copy' used in the content sense.
[+] [-] csours|6 years ago|reply
Probably the same problem some people have with the term "Human Resources". If you can be reduced to a "Resource" then you're basically just meat (or it can feel that way).
When you use the term "creative" as a noun that way it sounds like a brain in a jar, and if the brain misbehaves, it can be replaced.
[+] [-] dhimes|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|6 years ago|reply
The design of the budget system is in Google's favour, not yours, and if you don't understand that, you'll end up paying much more than you need to.
If you think setting the budget to half is a way to halve your ad spend and get half the number of clicks, you're right, but you're also naïve.
If Google thinks your current rate of spend is going to exceed the daily budget, they'll effectively deactivate your ad for random impressions, leading to less spend.
but that isn't the best strategy. The best strategy is to lower your bids to win fewer auctions if you want to spend less. That way, you can spend half as much, but get more ROI, since the Google AI will be only showing your ad to those most likely to be interested in it.
[+] [-] irrational|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicklafferty|6 years ago|reply
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-reven...
[+] [-] therealdrag0|6 years ago|reply
Personally I don't like these things because I know what I want before I buy it and I research almost everything I buy, and I probably have some anti-consumer bent deep down in my belly that stigmatizes shopping for the sake of shopping.
But not everyone is like this. I've heard people say they like ads before, and AFAIK it's usually clothing ads.
Now that facebook has embedded ads that get past OOTB ad-blocker and are super targeted to me, I've actually clicked on a couple ads that have intrigued me, knowing I'd not buy it but interested in what their pitch was. Most of those were kickstarter projects or some kind of "adventure gear".
[+] [-] beefield|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] annihilatormod|6 years ago|reply
Sometimes this will turn into anger toward a brand even, like when I'm visiting family over the holidays and I momentarily remember just how bad cable television ads are. I just start to legitimately hate a company because of their ads. I wonder how many companies calculate value lost from an ad because of annoyed people.
[+] [-] Animats|6 years ago|reply
The author is spending $6M a year on ads and is generating substantially more revenue than that, they claim. Why are they bothering with spare-change Amazon affiliate links? If they can get revenue like that, they should be making tons of money with their day job. What's wrong with this picture?
[+] [-] nicklafferty|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwython|6 years ago|reply
These days many top performing video ads are the ones that are made to look amateur/cheap. And it's not just the guru course ads. The native vlogger-style ad is often more engaging on a platform filled with vloggers. High production value "professional" ads have traditionally been created to lend credibility & authority to the brand. But if their audience now trusts "influencers" more than big brands, what's the harm in testing a TON of simple video creatives with clever scripts.
I've even seen this style now in offline commercials.
[+] [-] cosmodisk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|6 years ago|reply
"Creative" in the context of an ad means the image, video, text, etc. Basically, the ad content that the user will see.
[+] [-] dmoy|6 years ago|reply
The target market there is different though. Think instead of a single company spending $6m on their ads, more like an agency spending $60m++ on 10++ different companies' ads.
Major props to this guy for doing so well in house though.
[+] [-] dave84|6 years ago|reply
Hiring creatives to make your creatives.
[+] [-] C4stor|6 years ago|reply
Having people all over the world shown an ad for a specifically localized shop ? No thanks !
For more online businesses, the results are indeed quite decent !
[+] [-] steeleyespan|6 years ago|reply
The third party services aren't much help. Google has a lot of great in-house support to ramp up your Adspend once you get noticed. Not sure what the target is, but we seem to get a new rep every few months who has new suggestions.
I have no experience with Youtube, but that is highly interesting.
If Adwords isn't working for you, there is a ton to dive into. Could be your website, could be your product. If you have a competitor obviously succeeding in the space with heavy Adwords spend the fault is probably on your end (unless they're just pissing away money, but how long does that go on for?).
[+] [-] ab_testing|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mike_aarons|6 years ago|reply
Are there good online courses or blogs that you recommend?
[+] [-] itronitron|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] butler14|6 years ago|reply
to give you one back, my cringe dev jargon of the moment is PERFORMANT