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> “After all, who cares if big brands waste their money showing ads to bots?” I'm not so sure this affects only big brands. I've experienced that in march 202

by myth2018 4y ago

> “After all, who cares if big brands waste their money showing ads to bots?” I'm not so sure this affects only big brands. I've experienced that in march 2020. I ran ads in a very popular platform and was fairly happy about the results -- modest, but steady. When the pandemics hit, my target-market shifted their focus away from my sort of product, and such shift happened almost overnight. Since I used to get a reasonable amount of real visitors, I thought "well, I believe the clicks on my ads will decrease sharply now". Guess what? I kept getting the same amount of clicks on average, and my budget of course kept burning at the same rate. The only difference was that the "visits" started to last only a few seconds, the pages were not scrolled anymore, and the "visitors" never sent an inquiry.

seti0Cha 4y ago
Your bounce rate went up. That's still consistent with your target audience losing interest. It may be that they care enough to click on your ad but don't engage with your content. It could also be that the ratio of bots increased at the same rate as customer interest wained, or it could be the ads were never effective. It kind of doesn't matter. As an ad buyer, the only thing you to need worry about is whether the value of the traffic coming from the ads is worth your money. Uninterested humans and bots are of equally little value.
- myth2018 4y ago
  They cared enough to keep searching for my keywords, to click on my ads, but then they realized they were not interested and bounced? Also, like I said, the traffic the ads generated was good (it generated prospects fitting the profile I was targeting, and I was happy with the numbers), so yes, the ads were effective.
  - seti0Cha 4y ago
    My point is, either the traffic got worse or your ad is no longer effective and a higher bounce rate can indicate either. Bots don't shoulder aside regular users, so regardless of whether there are more bots, there are less users. Otherwise you'd have seen traffic increasing but not conversion. If traffic is flat and interaction is down, you've lost interested users and you need to look at your creative, or your targeting, or possibly consider whether any design or content changes on your landing page could be responsible. It could also be that you are getting outbid and your placement is now not catching the best customers. The fact that what worked before doesn't work now is totally normal. Customer tastes change, competitor behavior changes, the traffic supplier is changing. Ad buying is a constant battle.
lofaszvanitt 4y ago
And have you checked what was the ip range they came from?

seti0Cha 4y ago

Your bounce rate went up. That's still consistent with your target audience losing interest. It may be that they care enough to click on your ad but don't engage with your content. It could also be that the ratio of bots increased at the same rate as customer interest wained, or it could be the ads were never effective. It kind of doesn't matter. As an ad buyer, the only thing you to need worry about is whether the value of the traffic coming from the ads is worth your money. Uninterested humans and bots are of equally little value.

myth2018 4y ago
They cared enough to keep searching for my keywords, to click on my ads, but then they realized they were not interested and bounced? Also, like I said, the traffic the ads generated was good (it generated prospects fitting the profile I was targeting, and I was happy with the numbers), so yes, the ads were effective.
- seti0Cha 4y ago
  My point is, either the traffic got worse or your ad is no longer effective and a higher bounce rate can indicate either. Bots don't shoulder aside regular users, so regardless of whether there are more bots, there are less users. Otherwise you'd have seen traffic increasing but not conversion. If traffic is flat and interaction is down, you've lost interested users and you need to look at your creative, or your targeting, or possibly consider whether any design or content changes on your landing page could be responsible. It could also be that you are getting outbid and your placement is now not catching the best customers. The fact that what worked before doesn't work now is totally normal. Customer tastes change, competitor behavior changes, the traffic supplier is changing. Ad buying is a constant battle.

lofaszvanitt 4y ago

And have you checked what was the ip range they came from?