7 ms·

After 10 years of spending 100k on average per month, we stopped spending in 2019 and put money into cold calling. Conversions tripled and we could only spend h

After 10 years of spending 100k on average per month, we stopped spending in 2019 and put money into cold calling. Conversions tripled and we could only spend half our yearly budget in our call campaign. Google is expensive and returns now suck even more than they did in 2017.

staticautomatic 7y ago
Are your cold calling ops in house?
busterarm 7y ago
Not accusing, but it's still worth considering - could it just have been that your targeting was bad? I worked in a heavily regulated industry with some of the Top 10 most expensive keywords and we spent about $150 million a year on advertising with a solid 1/4 of it going to digital (almost exclusively Google) and it was worth it. Digital spend got customer acquisition costs way way down and we spent significant effort into trying to _reduce_ our call center operations (mostly via automation). It's important to invest in people to crunch the numbers and get your targeting right. TV was still king though.
- Narkov 7y ago
  I get the feeling that you are both right. ROI is heavily industry specific.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    I'm inclined to agree.
- 6nf 7y ago
  Facebook is killing it. It's harder than ever to justify spending a lot of money on Google.
  - busterarm 7y ago
    This is the same Facebook that inflated view numbers? We ran Facebook ads when I was there and they just didn't convert at all. It was pissing money away. We got better engagement from posting on Twitter for free.
    - RandallBrown 7y ago
      Just a little anecdote. I've never purchased anything I've seen in an online ad except Facebook and Instagram. Their targeting is so good that I almost don't mind seeing the ads.
      - koolba 7y ago
        > Their targeting is so good that I almost don't mind seeing the ads. Wouldn’t that make you more apprehensive of their ads? As it’d be more likely to lead to you parting ways with your money.
        jfoster 7y ago
        Parting ways with money is good. Money is the intermediary. You create value to get money. You part ways with money to realise other types of value on the other end. If you accumulate a lot of money it means you have created lots of value but you haven't been able to use this intermediary to realise other types of value in exchange for the value that you created.
      - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
        Interesting. For me it's almost the opposite: if I see it on FB/Instagram, my first thought is it's a scam (and I'm often right).
        londons_explore 7y ago
        If you click those scammy ads to see if they're a scam, Facebooks AI will see you are interested in them, and show you more scammy ads.
- rurp 7y ago
  This might be a silly question but how did you measure the effectiveness of the TV ads?
  - arbol 7y ago
    You can analyse traffic to provide a probabilistic view of web or app hits and conversions driven by TV. This works by identifying spikes of traffic within a 5 minute window following a TV ad. Source: https://tvsquared.com/ https://tvsquared.com/
GordonS 7y ago
I find it incredible that cold calling works for you; everywhere I've ever worked in the UK and across Europe, cold-callers get short-shrift - with no exceptions.
- samsolomon 7y ago
  I'd say it depends on the product and market. Account-based selling has a few reps focused on a few key decision makers within an organization. It works exceptionally well for mid-market and enterprise software.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I've worked almost exclusively in large enterprises - the attitude towards cold-callers has ways been the same. I and others I know have had cold-callers using scummy tactics, such as claiming to know the decision maker from way back, claiming they lost their number etc - but these are so old nobody I know falls for them anymore.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I think he means calling established leads, not telemarketing, which I believe is what you are referring to. Like calling an existing business partner and offering them an additional service. At least that's what I hope he means, rather than telemarketing.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    They did explicitly say "cold calling".
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    That's not what cold calling is but I suppose it's possible the top poster is confused about what that phrase means.
partiallypro 7y ago
Maybe your campaigns weren't setup correctly?
three_seagrass 7y ago
Were you selling a B2C or B2B product? B2B telemarketing will almost always be better because the purchase decision makers are few, well known, and easier to get a hold of. Non-branded keywords for B2B products are also saturated by the competition, meaning you'd need to be on top of your game to the search ads on them to work.
privateSFacct 7y ago
What is this product? When people cold call me to sell me investment advice I hang up. When I get a betterment / personal capital / fidelity advert in my feed talking about their new whatever, I'm at least mildly interested and sometimes click through. Do people really fall for the boiler room stuff still - it's VERY hard to believe that beats google / facebook / instagram (for product sales) etc
- baddox 7y ago
  At least as of 10 years ago, national (USA) TV networks have a ton of commercials about investing and “wealth management” from massive financial institutions. It must be a massive market with plenty of uncommitted customers to claim.
  - dhnsmakala 7y ago
    It's about the expected value of a customer. It's probably thousands recurring per year for the wealth management stuff, and people don't switch often. So the customer acquisition cost can be super high -> lots of commercials even with small market compared to other products/services.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  yes cold calling about investments would sound to me like boiler room scams - id be reporting that the Authorities.
robocat 7y ago
> we stopped spending in 2019 I presume the profit (LTV compared to your $100k) dropped below some expected return for your fixed investments? Was that due to competition, or some other factor? I am guessing that it isn't actually due to Google, but due to the advertising marketplace?

staticautomatic 7y ago

Are your cold calling ops in house?

busterarm 7y ago

Not accusing, but it's still worth considering - could it just have been that your targeting was bad? I worked in a heavily regulated industry with some of the Top 10 most expensive keywords and we spent about $150 million a year on advertising with a solid 1/4 of it going to digital (almost exclusively Google) and it was worth it. Digital spend got customer acquisition costs way way down and we spent significant effort into trying to _reduce_ our call center operations (mostly via automation). It's important to invest in people to crunch the numbers and get your targeting right. TV was still king though.

Narkov 7y ago
I get the feeling that you are both right. ROI is heavily industry specific.
- busterarm 7y ago
  I'm inclined to agree.
6nf 7y ago
Facebook is killing it. It's harder than ever to justify spending a lot of money on Google.
- busterarm 7y ago
  This is the same Facebook that inflated view numbers? We ran Facebook ads when I was there and they just didn't convert at all. It was pissing money away. We got better engagement from posting on Twitter for free.
  - RandallBrown 7y ago
    Just a little anecdote. I've never purchased anything I've seen in an online ad except Facebook and Instagram. Their targeting is so good that I almost don't mind seeing the ads.
    - koolba 7y ago
      > Their targeting is so good that I almost don't mind seeing the ads. Wouldn’t that make you more apprehensive of their ads? As it’d be more likely to lead to you parting ways with your money.
      - jfoster 7y ago
        Parting ways with money is good. Money is the intermediary. You create value to get money. You part ways with money to realise other types of value on the other end. If you accumulate a lot of money it means you have created lots of value but you haven't been able to use this intermediary to realise other types of value in exchange for the value that you created.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
      Interesting. For me it's almost the opposite: if I see it on FB/Instagram, my first thought is it's a scam (and I'm often right).
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        If you click those scammy ads to see if they're a scam, Facebooks AI will see you are interested in them, and show you more scammy ads.
rurp 7y ago
This might be a silly question but how did you measure the effectiveness of the TV ads?
- arbol 7y ago
  You can analyse traffic to provide a probabilistic view of web or app hits and conversions driven by TV. This works by identifying spikes of traffic within a 5 minute window following a TV ad. Source: https://tvsquared.com/ https://tvsquared.com/

GordonS 7y ago

I find it incredible that cold calling works for you; everywhere I've ever worked in the UK and across Europe, cold-callers get short-shrift - with no exceptions.

samsolomon 7y ago
I'd say it depends on the product and market. Account-based selling has a few reps focused on a few key decision makers within an organization. It works exceptionally well for mid-market and enterprise software.
- GordonS 7y ago
  I've worked almost exclusively in large enterprises - the attitude towards cold-callers has ways been the same. I and others I know have had cold-callers using scummy tactics, such as claiming to know the decision maker from way back, claiming they lost their number etc - but these are so old nobody I know falls for them anymore.
reaperducer 7y ago
I think he means calling established leads, not telemarketing, which I believe is what you are referring to. Like calling an existing business partner and offering them an additional service. At least that's what I hope he means, rather than telemarketing.
- GordonS 7y ago
  They did explicitly say "cold calling".
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  That's not what cold calling is but I suppose it's possible the top poster is confused about what that phrase means.

partiallypro 7y ago

Maybe your campaigns weren't setup correctly?

three_seagrass 7y ago

Were you selling a B2C or B2B product? B2B telemarketing will almost always be better because the purchase decision makers are few, well known, and easier to get a hold of. Non-branded keywords for B2B products are also saturated by the competition, meaning you'd need to be on top of your game to the search ads on them to work.

privateSFacct 7y ago

What is this product? When people cold call me to sell me investment advice I hang up. When I get a betterment / personal capital / fidelity advert in my feed talking about their new whatever, I'm at least mildly interested and sometimes click through. Do people really fall for the boiler room stuff still - it's VERY hard to believe that beats google / facebook / instagram (for product sales) etc

baddox 7y ago
At least as of 10 years ago, national (USA) TV networks have a ton of commercials about investing and “wealth management” from massive financial institutions. It must be a massive market with plenty of uncommitted customers to claim.
- dhnsmakala 7y ago
  It's about the expected value of a customer. It's probably thousands recurring per year for the wealth management stuff, and people don't switch often. So the customer acquisition cost can be super high -> lots of commercials even with small market compared to other products/services.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
yes cold calling about investments would sound to me like boiler room scams - id be reporting that the Authorities.

robocat 7y ago

> we stopped spending in 2019 I presume the profit (LTV compared to your $100k) dropped below some expected return for your fixed investments? Was that due to competition, or some other factor? I am guessing that it isn't actually due to Google, but due to the advertising marketplace?