Digital Marketing Frustrations

Social Media - Is It All A Hoax?

The more I get involved with digital media such as Facebook or Google Ads, the more I become skeptical about how honest the analytics are.

If you're not familiar with how slot machines work, they use a RNG, or random number generator, to determine when the wheels stop, and thus the outcome of each time you throw your money at the machine.

I'm beginning to wonder if a similar system isn't used to report back to us as to the effectiveness of our ad campaign monies spent.

As an example, the recent update given to me by Google for my Ads campaign in May for another business I own/run, told me that I had 26,805 views and 164 clicks on my ad!

Now the law of averages would lead one to believe that those kinds of numbers would produce a fair amount of actual leads or contacts, where people actually act on what they saw, such as call, text, or email me.

Not so! Do you know that I received only ONE (1) message from those numbers! And that turned out to be someone who was just messing me around/spamming me.

Proof Please!

How can they prove that the numbers they throw at us are accurate or even real?!

Those numbers are meaningless, as that's all they are - numbers. We can't contact these views or clicks. If we were provided with a list of real people who really viewed or clicked, that would make a world of difference!

That would give us something tangible to work with. We could then act on their action. But what do we do with numbers. Sure we can use them as data for tracking success rates of various ads, but if they're fake stats to begin with, what good is tracking?

I seriously believe that they just throw random, and sometimes inflated, numbers at us just to massage our egos and pocket books. To make us think that they are doing this fantastic job of marketing us, and to encourage us to continue "feeding" the machine.

FB is the Same

I've been running FB ads for quite some time as well, and also with putrid results. In the beginning I can see the mistakes I made with content, targeting, keywords, etc, etc. But I have amended my approach to recommended tactics, watched several marketing gurus and implemented their strategies, only to receive the same results.

Scam?

Are we being hoodwinked? Is social media one big ripoff??

How can anyone give proof that what they claim to do is what really happens? Everyone in the digital marketing realm claims to have THE answer - just follow these simple steps and people will be beating down your door! Just hand over your money, and you will have all the "inside secrets".

Well if it is so easy and is truly effective, why hasn't it worked for me? What am I doing wrong?

How About You?

You have by now sensed that my experience has been a very poor one with online marketing platforms.

Do you have experiences that are good? If so, what are you doing to get the results you are looking for? If you are getting sales of some sort, would you be willing to share?

Have a great day all, and here's to actual, real success!

Tom