4 ms·

Are you wasting your AdWords budget on in-app ads?

36 points by hermitcrab 12y ago

makmanalp 12y ago
I mean, isn't this advertising 101? If you put an ad for something in front of an audience that won't buy it, you're going to get terrible performance. If you're selling $1000 b2b software, don't advertise on flappy bird. https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722057?hl=en https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722057?hl=en edit: I guess the contentious point here is why they enable non-specific in-app ads by default.
- Mz 12y ago
  Some folks hang out here because they need some of those "101" courses they never took in school (and which, even if they took them, might have been "academic" -- a euphemism for irrelevant to real world experience). Others are beyond that yet can still benefit from being reminded of the basics. Some folks get comfortable and, thus, start being sloppy -- at which point they are in danger of failing in a big way. Better to get the occasional reminder. So I don't have a problem with "101" lever concepts getting upvoted and discussed here. (But, you know, have an upvote!)
- crazypyro 12y ago
  Not only did they enable non-specific in-app ads by default, they apparently also automatically enabled it for all existing ad campaigns. I think that's the key takeaway?
- jsonne 12y ago
  The issue comes in when you get into programatic advertising and you're buying millions or billions of impressions at 1 time. The other issue is ad networks have also been really historically opaque about their inventory. I have no idea why, but more transparency for ad networks would help with this a lot.
Silhouette 12y ago
Right now, I'm wondering how anyone gets any sensible results out of Google Display Network advertising at all. I had my first and, for the foreseeable future, probably last experience with them recently. Despite running ads in a style that worked well on other ad networks, using highly specific terms to target the site's niche audience, for a site that generally gets excellent engagement once people find it, there was literally 0% engagement from GDN visitors. Not a single person so much as visited a second page, according to Google's own statistics. It turned out that most of the ads were being shown on pages that seemed to have little if any obvious connection to any of the targeting terms. The top referrer even had the small print, low contrast, keyword spam at the top of the page (Viagra, payday loans, that kind of stuff) that I thought everyone gave up on years ago. And Google had the audacity to charge us for that traffic. Our solution is simple: We no longer have an AdWords budget, and we've cancelled all our other Google-related to-do items in favour of various other on-line channels.
- hermitcrab 12y ago
  There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Also I guess most of the websites with good quality content charge advertisers direct, rather than getting chump change from Google Display ads.
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. Sure, I can understand one or two getting through. But just looking down the top referrers from Google's own stats, almost none of them appeared to be related to the chosen target terms in this case. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Yes, GDN is "old school" advertising, but that doesn't explain a total lack of engagement from the visitors. Other on-line advertising channels have been used to promote the same site, including multiple variants of display advertising using almost exactly the same ad styles and targeting strategies. Some seem to be more successful than others after the first few experiments, but all of them consistently achieve fair to very good engagement levels. I almost have to think that something went wrong here, because I don't understand how Google can still be in business if our experience is typical of the results they can offer. Perhaps it works better for sites with less specific audiences or for big name brands. Still, if that is the best Google can do for a niche site with very targeted terms, it has literally no value as an advertising channel for us.
k1w1 12y ago
We went through exactly the same thing (http://blog.aha.io/index.php/pissing-away-our-money-with-google-display-ads/ http://blog.aha.io/index.php/pissing-away-our-money-with-goo...). You can opt out of the in-app ads completely by adding "adsenseformobileapps.com" to the excluded domains.
- hermitcrab 12y ago
  Useful to know there is a (rather obscure) opt-out and also that you were able to get money back from Google. Thanks.

36 points by hermitcrab 12y ago

I mean, isn't this advertising 101? If you put an ad for something in front of an audience that won't buy it, you're going to get terrible performance. If you're selling $1000 b2b software, don't advertise on flappy bird. https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722057?hl=en https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722057?hl=en edit: I guess the contentious point here is why they enable non-specific in-app ads by default.

Mz 12y ago
Some folks hang out here because they need some of those "101" courses they never took in school (and which, even if they took them, might have been "academic" -- a euphemism for irrelevant to real world experience). Others are beyond that yet can still benefit from being reminded of the basics. Some folks get comfortable and, thus, start being sloppy -- at which point they are in danger of failing in a big way. Better to get the occasional reminder. So I don't have a problem with "101" lever concepts getting upvoted and discussed here. (But, you know, have an upvote!)
crazypyro 12y ago
Not only did they enable non-specific in-app ads by default, they apparently also automatically enabled it for all existing ad campaigns. I think that's the key takeaway?
jsonne 12y ago
The issue comes in when you get into programatic advertising and you're buying millions or billions of impressions at 1 time. The other issue is ad networks have also been really historically opaque about their inventory. I have no idea why, but more transparency for ad networks would help with this a lot.

Silhouette 12y ago

Right now, I'm wondering how anyone gets any sensible results out of Google Display Network advertising at all. I had my first and, for the foreseeable future, probably last experience with them recently. Despite running ads in a style that worked well on other ad networks, using highly specific terms to target the site's niche audience, for a site that generally gets excellent engagement once people find it, there was literally 0% engagement from GDN visitors. Not a single person so much as visited a second page, according to Google's own statistics. It turned out that most of the ads were being shown on pages that seemed to have little if any obvious connection to any of the targeting terms. The top referrer even had the small print, low contrast, keyword spam at the top of the page (Viagra, payday loans, that kind of stuff) that I thought everyone gave up on years ago. And Google had the audacity to charge us for that traffic. Our solution is simple: We no longer have an AdWords budget, and we've cancelled all our other Google-related to-do items in favour of various other on-line channels.

hermitcrab 12y ago
There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Also I guess most of the websites with good quality content charge advertisers direct, rather than getting chump change from Google Display ads.
- Silhouette 12y ago
  There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. Sure, I can understand one or two getting through. But just looking down the top referrers from Google's own stats, almost none of them appeared to be related to the chosen target terms in this case. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Yes, GDN is "old school" advertising, but that doesn't explain a total lack of engagement from the visitors. Other on-line advertising channels have been used to promote the same site, including multiple variants of display advertising using almost exactly the same ad styles and targeting strategies. Some seem to be more successful than others after the first few experiments, but all of them consistently achieve fair to very good engagement levels. I almost have to think that something went wrong here, because I don't understand how Google can still be in business if our experience is typical of the results they can offer. Perhaps it works better for sites with less specific audiences or for big name brands. Still, if that is the best Google can do for a niche site with very targeted terms, it has literally no value as an advertising channel for us.

k1w1 12y ago

We went through exactly the same thing (http://blog.aha.io/index.php/pissing-away-our-money-with-google-display-ads/ http://blog.aha.io/index.php/pissing-away-our-money-with-goo...). You can opt out of the in-app ads completely by adding "adsenseformobileapps.com" to the excluded domains.

hermitcrab 12y ago
Useful to know there is a (rather obscure) opt-out and also that you were able to get money back from Google. Thanks.