4 ms·

Not surprised. My wife started a local franchise that provides a service and I've been doing the Internet marketing. I ran local ads on Google...lots of clicks

by fma 9y ago

Not surprised. My wife started a local franchise that provides a service and I've been doing the Internet marketing. I ran local ads on Google...lots of clicks and cost lots of money...but no one came in saying they were referred by Google. Other owners I've talked to told me to use Facebook, it's more effective.

jug 9y ago
Google probably saw the writing on the wall, hence Google+...
- ghthor 9y ago
  This is pretty much it. Since Facebook controls the ENTIRE stack where the serve ads they can almost completely eliminate spam.
  - majani 9y ago
    Also engagement for social media is second to none when you get it right.
shostack 9y ago
Respectfully without knowing your background, I hear this sort of anecdotal story a lot. Often times it is from people who ran a tiny amount of spend, didn't have their account properly setup, didn't have solid conversion tracking setting for the areas that matter, and then arrived at the conclusion that it failed because it "drove lots of clicks and cost lots of money" without any mention of whether they reached statistical significance for testing conversion performance, or any of those other things I mentioned. Waiting for people to come in saying they were referred by Google is just a really poor way to go about measuring performance of local advertising on Google with things like the ability to upload offline conversions, promoting coupons with unique codes, click-to-call ads, etc. More often than not I've found the issue is with the advertiser, not Google. And I'm saying this as someone who has done paid search across many verticals, many size clients, and helped lead the paid search group at a top search agency. My take on the reason for this is Google and FB make a genuine effort to make it easy for mom and pop businesses to advertise with them. However they also tend to push them towards things that maximize their revenue and margins in the process (as one might expect) even if it wasn't necessarily in the best interest of the advertiser. For example, when you click to create a new campaign, Google has "Search Network with Display Select" as the first option, and they say "best opportunity to reach the most customers." That is easily the most salesy wording in that entire list. And inexperienced advertisers might think it was the right choice. But it is not. I can't think of a single experienced advertiser I know who would ever mix search and display network traffic. I just can't think of any real reason that could potentially offset the downsides of doing so. But you'd be hard pressed to figure that out just by taking their UI and docs and recommendations at face value. There is a reason that an entire media career path has sprung up around managing search and display, and that's because it is highly technical, extremely complex, and changing at a breathtaking pace--much like engineering.
- fma 9y ago
  You're right, my advertising experience is limited. My background is software engineering and only touched advertisement with placements on my blogs, and advertising on Facebook back in like 2005 when they were still college only...those were the days you paid a flat fee, based on the number of users at a university, to advertise at an entire university! In regards to measuring performance - discounts were offered if they mentioned the 'web special'. Zilch. We actually spent money on Direct Mail, and mailing out coupons within those packs in an envelope. Direct Mail...is not cheap...thousands of dollars. Other franchise owners said word of mouth will drive the most customers. We only had 1 customer come in with a coupon, and she was already with communication with my wife prior and just wanted to know if she could stack it with another promotion. My wife has been up and running for 3 months, and every customer is by word of mouth. It is a franchise, so their friends and family have used it. They would drive by and see the pylon sign, or searched online and found our location. The amount of customers is say, 60 over 3 months. It is a service that families pay reoccurring. The service, without being specific, is tutoring. So the customer base would be say, within 5 mile radius with kids in elementary - high school. Ads were targeted to the 3 zip codes that surround and specific key words were used, including generic "math classes", to competitor's brand, to the local school names. We've had luck by sponsoring a school, as well. I don't know what metric is most telling, or if you have time. But I pasted some censored metrics here (http://imgur.com/a/j69Qv http://imgur.com/a/j69Qv). I would be open to giving Google ads another shot if you feel I can tweak it for better performance...and any resources you feel would help would be appreciated. Thanks!
  - shostack 9y ago
    Without knowing more about how many prospective customers are in a 5 mile radius it is hard to advise. That said, right off the bad I get concerned when I see zero data on conversions, CPAs, click-to-call conversions, etc. You can't really measure performance for this sort of thing just by spend and clicks, particularly at that low volume. Get tracking setup first and foremost. And even if they can't pay online, look for other events you can tag as "micro-conversions" that that help form a funnel. Maybe it is checking pricing, maybe it is submitting a form for more info. Just get SOMETHING there to make a more informed decision off of. And then make sure you actually keep at it until you get a decent amount of data with which to make a decision. That's the best I can suggest to start. Everything else stems from that.

by fma 9y ago

jug 9y ago

Google probably saw the writing on the wall, hence Google+...

ghthor 9y ago
This is pretty much it. Since Facebook controls the ENTIRE stack where the serve ads they can almost completely eliminate spam.
- majani 9y ago
  Also engagement for social media is second to none when you get it right.

shostack 9y ago

Respectfully without knowing your background, I hear this sort of anecdotal story a lot. Often times it is from people who ran a tiny amount of spend, didn't have their account properly setup, didn't have solid conversion tracking setting for the areas that matter, and then arrived at the conclusion that it failed because it "drove lots of clicks and cost lots of money" without any mention of whether they reached statistical significance for testing conversion performance, or any of those other things I mentioned. Waiting for people to come in saying they were referred by Google is just a really poor way to go about measuring performance of local advertising on Google with things like the ability to upload offline conversions, promoting coupons with unique codes, click-to-call ads, etc. More often than not I've found the issue is with the advertiser, not Google. And I'm saying this as someone who has done paid search across many verticals, many size clients, and helped lead the paid search group at a top search agency. My take on the reason for this is Google and FB make a genuine effort to make it easy for mom and pop businesses to advertise with them. However they also tend to push them towards things that maximize their revenue and margins in the process (as one might expect) even if it wasn't necessarily in the best interest of the advertiser. For example, when you click to create a new campaign, Google has "Search Network with Display Select" as the first option, and they say "best opportunity to reach the most customers." That is easily the most salesy wording in that entire list. And inexperienced advertisers might think it was the right choice. But it is not. I can't think of a single experienced advertiser I know who would ever mix search and display network traffic. I just can't think of any real reason that could potentially offset the downsides of doing so. But you'd be hard pressed to figure that out just by taking their UI and docs and recommendations at face value. There is a reason that an entire media career path has sprung up around managing search and display, and that's because it is highly technical, extremely complex, and changing at a breathtaking pace--much like engineering.

fma 9y ago
You're right, my advertising experience is limited. My background is software engineering and only touched advertisement with placements on my blogs, and advertising on Facebook back in like 2005 when they were still college only...those were the days you paid a flat fee, based on the number of users at a university, to advertise at an entire university! In regards to measuring performance - discounts were offered if they mentioned the 'web special'. Zilch. We actually spent money on Direct Mail, and mailing out coupons within those packs in an envelope. Direct Mail...is not cheap...thousands of dollars. Other franchise owners said word of mouth will drive the most customers. We only had 1 customer come in with a coupon, and she was already with communication with my wife prior and just wanted to know if she could stack it with another promotion. My wife has been up and running for 3 months, and every customer is by word of mouth. It is a franchise, so their friends and family have used it. They would drive by and see the pylon sign, or searched online and found our location. The amount of customers is say, 60 over 3 months. It is a service that families pay reoccurring. The service, without being specific, is tutoring. So the customer base would be say, within 5 mile radius with kids in elementary - high school. Ads were targeted to the 3 zip codes that surround and specific key words were used, including generic "math classes", to competitor's brand, to the local school names. We've had luck by sponsoring a school, as well. I don't know what metric is most telling, or if you have time. But I pasted some censored metrics here (http://imgur.com/a/j69Qv http://imgur.com/a/j69Qv). I would be open to giving Google ads another shot if you feel I can tweak it for better performance...and any resources you feel would help would be appreciated. Thanks!
- shostack 9y ago
  Without knowing more about how many prospective customers are in a 5 mile radius it is hard to advise. That said, right off the bad I get concerned when I see zero data on conversions, CPAs, click-to-call conversions, etc. You can't really measure performance for this sort of thing just by spend and clicks, particularly at that low volume. Get tracking setup first and foremost. And even if they can't pay online, look for other events you can tag as "micro-conversions" that that help form a funnel. Maybe it is checking pricing, maybe it is submitting a form for more info. Just get SOMETHING there to make a more informed decision off of. And then make sure you actually keep at it until you get a decent amount of data with which to make a decision. That's the best I can suggest to start. Everything else stems from that.