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As someone who has helped massively grow a handful of businesses with Facebook being a significant channel, part of me wants to say "Yep, FB advertising is bunk

As someone who has helped massively grow a handful of businesses with Facebook being a significant channel, part of me wants to say "Yep, FB advertising is bunk. Everyone stop!" But in reality I'd be saying that in a weak attempt to make my own Facebook advertising more effective. Lemme tl;dr this in three bullets: - It's far easier for non-sophisticated advertisers to waste money. - The ad platform is pretty technical and nuanced - Notice I didn't mention facebook in the previous two bullets? That's because it's true for anywhere you buy ads, even print or flyers, radio or direct mail. So to reiterate: For any given paid advertising channel, it is far easier for non-sophisticated people to waste money as it is to see significant ROI. Any place you can buy ads is far more technical and nuanced than people who don't live and breath it could every imagine.

moocowduckquack 13y ago
So given that, to see significant ROI you need to find genuine experts in how to use each form of media. So, even if it is technically possible to do well in a given media, if it is really hard to identify who is a genuine expert in that media due to it being new and full of snake-oil merchants, then you are likely to do better in a more established field.
- mschaecher 13y ago
  You're correct that there certainly a lot of snake-oil merchants out there. But they're not just limited "new" media channels. Just as many slimeballs in the traditional world. I'm going to get crucified for this, but paid advertising is somewhat analogous to software engineering/developers. There are many languages/platforms/technologies out there. Some old, some cutting edge. Each one most likely has it's own syntax/terminology, patterns, approaches etc. So when hiring a full stack engineer, you look for someone who cuts pretty deep across a few key areas, but can also roll up their sleeves across the stack if need be. Example: Ruby Expert, Getting into Angular, and knows how to provision AWS if need be. Same thing with full stack marketer. If you know Google Adwords, Content Marketing and a bit of PR are your core, then optimize your hire for that.
- yaur 13y ago
  There is already a bunch of startups around this problem. A friend of mine works at Adaptly which, among many others, let buyers who don't know social media advertising essentially outsource the expertise required to do so effectively. It's always seemed a bit like snake oil to me, but maybe its a real problem.
  - mschaecher 13y ago
    You're right it's a real problem. There are literally hundreds of "startups" doing that for social media advertising. Hundreds for search. Hundreds for display, and not just regular display, but RTB(sarcasm)! There are tons of startups doing it for native ads. And don't forget video, seo & content marketing among others. Add on to that, the partner/provider lists of "startups" that sit on top of one or many of those tools. And let's not forget about the 1000s of agencies out there to roll it all up. There are tons of snake oil salesman, and many good tools and people in that list. But as with pretty much any ecosystem, it's 80% crap, 10% meh, 10% bam. And there is no one right answer. Just like no absolute answer to Python vs Ruby. So whenever I see articles like, "facebook ads bad! look what they're doing!" Change it to, "facebook ads bad! Look at all the things I'm doing wrong, but don't even know enough to know I'm doing wrong!"
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >it is really hard to identify who is a genuine expert in that media // Arguably it's easy - if their advertising works then they're good. If you notice a marketing company then they're doing things right to some extent (at least WRT your demographic).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
unclebucknasty 13y ago
This article (video) is pointing to fundamental flaws in FB's advertising offerings. I don't think that any amount of "social media marketing" expertise will compensate for the fact that a large proportion of the ad spend on those offerings may likely be wasted on what is effectively fraud. Even if you optimize for better performance, there will still be inordinate waste to fraud. Beyond that, I think a lot of people have been jaded by the multitudes claiming that they can help businesses with social media. If you are stating that there is some fraction of 1% who do actually grasp some deep, esoteric knowledge required to succeed with Facebook campaigns (or with other channels like Google), then OK. But, I would think that to be a massive problem for Facebook, Google, etc. That is, the overwhelming majority of their customers (lacking the required knowledge) would eventually realize that the ROI just isn't there for them. Perhaps that will yet happen with some of these channels. If so, perhaps FB will be among the first to implode, as there are many who don't find the same abysmal metrics with Google, et. al. as they do on FB. So, even from a relative perspective, it still seems that FB is deeply flawed.
- mschaecher 13y ago
  BS - I've watched both videos twice and more sophisticated targeting solves 90% of their "problems." How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" and "large portion of ad spend...likely wasted...on what is effectively fraud." I've managed many millions across a handful of companies. Has their been issues? Yes, just like every other channel. You're spot on about being jaded though. Wading through the masses of BS is a huge pain. 75% of the people probably give up, 20% outsourced to varying results, 5% nail it in-house or via finding the right partner. But that 5%-15% of potential advertisers that lock it down? That's 80% of the ad spend right there. One Expedia is worth 100,000 small businesses to Google. Google, Facebook, et al have all tried to simplify their ad products to capture more potential advertisers at different levels. But in doing so they arrive at a Catch 22 though... To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs. So what are they supposed to do?
  - 13y ago

moocowduckquack 13y ago

So given that, to see significant ROI you need to find genuine experts in how to use each form of media. So, even if it is technically possible to do well in a given media, if it is really hard to identify who is a genuine expert in that media due to it being new and full of snake-oil merchants, then you are likely to do better in a more established field.

mschaecher 13y ago
You're correct that there certainly a lot of snake-oil merchants out there. But they're not just limited "new" media channels. Just as many slimeballs in the traditional world. I'm going to get crucified for this, but paid advertising is somewhat analogous to software engineering/developers. There are many languages/platforms/technologies out there. Some old, some cutting edge. Each one most likely has it's own syntax/terminology, patterns, approaches etc. So when hiring a full stack engineer, you look for someone who cuts pretty deep across a few key areas, but can also roll up their sleeves across the stack if need be. Example: Ruby Expert, Getting into Angular, and knows how to provision AWS if need be. Same thing with full stack marketer. If you know Google Adwords, Content Marketing and a bit of PR are your core, then optimize your hire for that.
yaur 13y ago
There is already a bunch of startups around this problem. A friend of mine works at Adaptly which, among many others, let buyers who don't know social media advertising essentially outsource the expertise required to do so effectively. It's always seemed a bit like snake oil to me, but maybe its a real problem.
- mschaecher 13y ago
  You're right it's a real problem. There are literally hundreds of "startups" doing that for social media advertising. Hundreds for search. Hundreds for display, and not just regular display, but RTB(sarcasm)! There are tons of startups doing it for native ads. And don't forget video, seo & content marketing among others. Add on to that, the partner/provider lists of "startups" that sit on top of one or many of those tools. And let's not forget about the 1000s of agencies out there to roll it all up. There are tons of snake oil salesman, and many good tools and people in that list. But as with pretty much any ecosystem, it's 80% crap, 10% meh, 10% bam. And there is no one right answer. Just like no absolute answer to Python vs Ruby. So whenever I see articles like, "facebook ads bad! look what they're doing!" Change it to, "facebook ads bad! Look at all the things I'm doing wrong, but don't even know enough to know I'm doing wrong!"
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>it is really hard to identify who is a genuine expert in that media // Arguably it's easy - if their advertising works then they're good. If you notice a marketing company then they're doing things right to some extent (at least WRT your demographic).

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

unclebucknasty 13y ago

This article (video) is pointing to fundamental flaws in FB's advertising offerings. I don't think that any amount of "social media marketing" expertise will compensate for the fact that a large proportion of the ad spend on those offerings may likely be wasted on what is effectively fraud. Even if you optimize for better performance, there will still be inordinate waste to fraud. Beyond that, I think a lot of people have been jaded by the multitudes claiming that they can help businesses with social media. If you are stating that there is some fraction of 1% who do actually grasp some deep, esoteric knowledge required to succeed with Facebook campaigns (or with other channels like Google), then OK. But, I would think that to be a massive problem for Facebook, Google, etc. That is, the overwhelming majority of their customers (lacking the required knowledge) would eventually realize that the ROI just isn't there for them. Perhaps that will yet happen with some of these channels. If so, perhaps FB will be among the first to implode, as there are many who don't find the same abysmal metrics with Google, et. al. as they do on FB. So, even from a relative perspective, it still seems that FB is deeply flawed.

mschaecher 13y ago
BS - I've watched both videos twice and more sophisticated targeting solves 90% of their "problems." How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" and "large portion of ad spend...likely wasted...on what is effectively fraud." I've managed many millions across a handful of companies. Has their been issues? Yes, just like every other channel. You're spot on about being jaded though. Wading through the masses of BS is a huge pain. 75% of the people probably give up, 20% outsourced to varying results, 5% nail it in-house or via finding the right partner. But that 5%-15% of potential advertisers that lock it down? That's 80% of the ad spend right there. One Expedia is worth 100,000 small businesses to Google. Google, Facebook, et al have all tried to simplify their ad products to capture more potential advertisers at different levels. But in doing so they arrive at a Catch 22 though... To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs. So what are they supposed to do?
- 13y ago