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I’ve had my own startups and worked with tens of others. I don’t know anybody who has had good experience or ROI with paid ads. There is something “emperors n

I’ve had my own startups and worked with tens of others. I don’t know anybody who has had good experience or ROI with paid ads. There is something “emperors new clothes” about the whole industry where we all play the game but nobody admits they just aren’t very good. Yet we all keep paying the Google bills thinking it’s something you have to do.

whimsicalism 3y ago
I see a comment like this on every discussion about ads for businesses, despite the fact that incrementality is easy to measure and quite good for a lot of businesses.
anonzzzies 3y ago
What is 'not really good'? We had spectacular ROI on adwords ads. BUT, and the article mentions this somewhat, not for tech/freemium saas products. Developers avoid ads like the plague. For consumer stuff that are just immediately paid (there is no free; you pay or you leave the landing page) it works incredibly well in our experience.
- k__ 3y ago
  "Developers avoid ads like the plague." If they can. They can't avoid them on Instagram or Tiktok.
  - anonzzzies 3y ago
    No, I guess that's where my age or echo chamber shines through; I don't know any developers using those platforms. My colleagues don't; most are > 40, but the 20somethings we work with also don't. That's just my experience, so it says very little. Like I say somewhere else, I'm curious what the conversion for tech products on those forced ad platforms is. Actual numbers.
    - k__ 3y ago
      I don't use them for dev stuff either. But I was surprised when I syndicated my content there, that so many devs where engaging there.
  - intrasight 3y ago
    Why do you think that?
  - tomjen3 3y ago
    I would assume most devs are smart enough to stay away from those places.
- benjaminwootton 3y ago
  This is the one situation where it does work better. Many years ago I was interested in affiliate marketing, where there was a relatively immediate purchase. The aim then was to optimise spend and conversion rate and a profit could be eeked out. When there is a slower sales cycle and a more complex or less transactional purchase then it all becomes much more vague and significantly harder to find ROI in my experience. The ad-click is likely to be one of a hundred factors compared to transactionally selling a widget.
- morning-coffee 3y ago
  > Developers avoid ads like the plague. Yep. As a developer, running a pihole, I don't see any ads and I wouldn't click even if I did. I thought the tl;dr; of the article was going to be along the lines of "if you're selling a "developer tool", don't bother buying ads because "developers" (i.e. your customers) are likely going to lengths to not see these ads in the first place.
_xivi 3y ago
> we all play the game but nobody admits they just aren’t very good I don't think that's common. Do you mean like in big corp where they use their deep pockets to make sure they don't leave room for competition? In other cases, people just expirement in order to find the right channel, similar to this post, which ultimately depends on the objective and target audience. Then they focus their efforts there.
danjc 3y ago
The house of Google always wins.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
I'll share a small secret. I don't know how replicable this is but I'm curious. Ad sets work really well for a while and then the numbers start getting faker and faker. So what I do is duplicate sets and everyday pause one and start another. This has given me better numbers although never 100% reliable numbers. All ad platforms fake some data and charge you for it.
hermitcrab 3y ago
I started using Google Ads in the early days and could get loads of well targetted clicks for £0.05 to £0.10 each. Those days are over. The "law of shitty clickthrus" says that every advertising channel gets less profitable over time.
jklinger410 3y ago
> I’ve had my own startups and worked with tens of others. I don’t know anybody who has had good experience or ROI with paid ads. And how many of those startups had a great product market fit and were successful, without a ton of incumbents in the industry eating their lunch? How much budget did they have and how much of their runway did it eat up to try and run ads? Many people blame ads for simply having a bad product that no one cares about and never finding the right audience for that product for them to even serve ads to in the first place.

whimsicalism 3y ago

I see a comment like this on every discussion about ads for businesses, despite the fact that incrementality is easy to measure and quite good for a lot of businesses.

anonzzzies 3y ago

What is 'not really good'? We had spectacular ROI on adwords ads. BUT, and the article mentions this somewhat, not for tech/freemium saas products. Developers avoid ads like the plague. For consumer stuff that are just immediately paid (there is no free; you pay or you leave the landing page) it works incredibly well in our experience.

k__ 3y ago
"Developers avoid ads like the plague." If they can. They can't avoid them on Instagram or Tiktok.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  No, I guess that's where my age or echo chamber shines through; I don't know any developers using those platforms. My colleagues don't; most are > 40, but the 20somethings we work with also don't. That's just my experience, so it says very little. Like I say somewhere else, I'm curious what the conversion for tech products on those forced ad platforms is. Actual numbers.
  - k__ 3y ago
    I don't use them for dev stuff either. But I was surprised when I syndicated my content there, that so many devs where engaging there.
- intrasight 3y ago
  Why do you think that?
- tomjen3 3y ago
  I would assume most devs are smart enough to stay away from those places.
benjaminwootton 3y ago
This is the one situation where it does work better. Many years ago I was interested in affiliate marketing, where there was a relatively immediate purchase. The aim then was to optimise spend and conversion rate and a profit could be eeked out. When there is a slower sales cycle and a more complex or less transactional purchase then it all becomes much more vague and significantly harder to find ROI in my experience. The ad-click is likely to be one of a hundred factors compared to transactionally selling a widget.
morning-coffee 3y ago
> Developers avoid ads like the plague. Yep. As a developer, running a pihole, I don't see any ads and I wouldn't click even if I did. I thought the tl;dr; of the article was going to be along the lines of "if you're selling a "developer tool", don't bother buying ads because "developers" (i.e. your customers) are likely going to lengths to not see these ads in the first place.

_xivi 3y ago

> we all play the game but nobody admits they just aren’t very good I don't think that's common. Do you mean like in big corp where they use their deep pockets to make sure they don't leave room for competition? In other cases, people just expirement in order to find the right channel, similar to this post, which ultimately depends on the objective and target audience. Then they focus their efforts there.

danjc 3y ago

The house of Google always wins.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

I'll share a small secret. I don't know how replicable this is but I'm curious. Ad sets work really well for a while and then the numbers start getting faker and faker. So what I do is duplicate sets and everyday pause one and start another. This has given me better numbers although never 100% reliable numbers. All ad platforms fake some data and charge you for it.

hermitcrab 3y ago

I started using Google Ads in the early days and could get loads of well targetted clicks for £0.05 to £0.10 each. Those days are over. The "law of shitty clickthrus" says that every advertising channel gets less profitable over time.

jklinger410 3y ago

> I’ve had my own startups and worked with tens of others. I don’t know anybody who has had good experience or ROI with paid ads. And how many of those startups had a great product market fit and were successful, without a ton of incumbents in the industry eating their lunch? How much budget did they have and how much of their runway did it eat up to try and run ads? Many people blame ads for simply having a bad product that no one cares about and never finding the right audience for that product for them to even serve ads to in the first place.