The (Overdue) Collapse of Facebook Ads
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- If you’re running a small business, you’ve been promised the ultimate shortcut to getting a steady stream of customers, and all it’ll cost you is 5 or 10 bucks a day.
Facebook ads have long been what we think of when we hear the term “paid ads,” because they worked really well for a long time.
But with privacy regulations making them less effective and more large companies advertising driving up the prices, the question isn’t so much “are facebook ads dead?” as much as “Are they still worth it?”
In this video, I’m sharing all the reasons why Facebook and Instagram ads aren’t the slam dunk they used to be, how they'll likely lose you money while burning you out, AND the better strategy you should be using instead.
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Watch me next for the proven playbook to double your revenue without using Facebook ads 👉th-cam.com/video/b7koXz8Gqzs/w-d-xo.html
As someone who built a TH-cam channel and sold tons of courses through it and was never able to do better than break even with Facebook ads, I believe nothing will be stronger than building a strong audience on TH-cam. But I don’t think it’s less work than the creation and testing of ads like you’re talking about. If anything it’s more work. Consistently coming up with new topics and recording editing and posting new videos weekly can be very draining over time.
True, but it’s LEVERAGED work that compounds over time. In other words it’s work worth doing, way more so than running ads.
As a consumer, I LIKE FB ads. What puzzles me are the youtube ads. I"ve watched THOUSANDS of videos the past 4 years and never bought anything from them. Can't see how they are the least bit effective.
To be clear, I'm not advocating for YT ads, just making YT videos.
@@WesMcDowellInc Oh, I understand that. I just find youtube ads far more annoying and don't see how companies make any money off of them.
Mostly just brand exposure. The more times you see a logo the more you build an unconscious familiarity with the company or brand.
@@Shelf_Help_ca No brand exposure when I hit the skip button ASAP.
I'm exactly the same way.
Nobody can confirm the ads actual views or circulation. I never trusted them, after their political intervention I will never give them a dime.
I had an ad recently that showed the same number of clicks and impressions, even when actual response to the campaign varied by a factor of 200. That's 20000%.
I'm quite certain they just didn't run the ad some days.
Hmmm, If im understanding what you are saying here correctly, It seems you are talking about the issue of bots clicking on your ads and creating false results in the ads metrics. I hope you know that the reason why this happens is because of competitors trying to deliberately obscure things so you waste money and get no where..
I use an array of different softwars that show whos a bot and whos human to systematically prevent my competitors from tryng cause false charges and obscured information in data metrics used to refine ads. Do you run ads yourself? Or do you pay someone else? I ask because I do ads on Facebook and instagram and I would have not only told you, "How" to verify if and why ads aren't bringing new sales or leads, but I would have told you of all the ways things can go wrong, especially on the side of the website you are trying to get people to interact with..All these things will cause issues and run up your ads bill on google or Meta platforms and make you think the ads don't work.
There is lots of sceptisism surrounding ads right now because of placebos associated with the millions of people being misslead, yet big businesses seem to get sales because they spend so much to the point it offsets the bot problem.
The average business owners are being fed misleading information not from Facebook, but from the people we hire to do ads who really don't have the skills or knowledge of the things involved in optimiziing the all aspects of ad conversions. Or other times if you get ads managers from overseas they don't understand the American public or the audiences they are doing ads to attract.
The big thing here is, you CAN find out who and what interaction is happening with your website by getting software that tracks visits and whether human input is happening on your website and ultimately help get you refunds from google and Meta if need be. Ads are really only 30% of the battle. Paying people in Fiverr, to do ads who charge a low amount, only to ignore these realities, turns their services into a scam. Most people who are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh are parts of groups hanging out in corporate business complexes that have multiple functions such as providing outsourced American customer service, Scam technical support and more all running under the same entity. They charge low rates on Fiverr and it goes to their boss who then cuts them a check which is crap.
@@kentguchi569Do you offer consultations regarding these tracking softwares?
I have wasted so much money on FB ads. It's been fun telling my lamentations to those people calling me to help with FB ads.
This is so true. What part? All of it. We’ve been doing FB from almost the beginning and the only thing we do now is use it to test content, organically. And then if it proves worthy we will then turn that into a paid ad and create…you guessed it YT videos. Spot on Wes. Thanks for always being the tip of the spear.
Thanks Jeff, I appreciate that! Good for you using TH-cam!
I feel entire digitalmarketing landspace is getting tougher
So many new companies
How would you suggest a marketing agency should move forward? Most clients would want to keep doing the traditional meta ads
It was easy when there was no competition
Businesses need to Hire someone that actually knows what they are doing and not rely on these kids that got sold on how easy it is to run an agency
Tougher? It's dead
I'm a romance author. I had an ad recently to grow my newsletter list, highly targeted, offering a free book. FB reported a steady ~100 clicks per day. Some days I'd have 20 new subs, some days I'd have 0. You can't tell me that 100 people click on an ad for a free book and then say, Nah, I don't want a free book. Six months ago, it was 0.08 per sub. Now it's $1-$2 per sub. I don't believe they were really showing the ad to anyone.
Facebook has been facing accusations of exaggerating their stats. I think they were sued at some point. And I think they are still doing it.
correct
Maybe your book sucks?
Sounds you like you have a big ego
@@romanwolkow6369 Shrugs. Seems unlikely that the book would fluctuate in quality day by day. People are buying it and going on to buy the rest of the series. It has a 4.4 star average. It's in the top 700 in the store now and got to the top 100 in the store on launch. Someone must like it, given the glowing reviews, thousands of sales and excellent read through. 😀
Is it romance novels or successful women you object to?
Great content, and beautiful color grading. In my opinion, Facebook ads are still worth it for mid-to-high price offers, but not low cost goods or services.
Great Vid Wes. Ive been using fb ads for 10 years and its got worse every year and especially since the Apple IOS targeting malarkey...
100%
After iOS 14. The results are down by 5-10X. Previously it use to work like magic, now it has lost all its targeting capabilities. Also the scaling is so difficult now. I failed to do that even after trying 100 times.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything on here! Don'e the Facebook ad thing and it's gotten they have become more and more complicated and expensive. TH-cam. That is the way to go. That is what has grown my business to 6 figures, without question.
what business do you run that youtube ads is effective ? I'm just curious bc I'm working with my first client on his google Search ad campaign, and once that's set up I was going to setup his FB campaign, but now I'm second guessing. He details cars by the way
I've been working with Facebook since 2016, and up until 2023, I saw consistent success, particularly with the ability to target specific interests and precisely reach the right audience.
Since they enforced Advantage+ campaigns and pushed their "recommended" broad targeting, it feels like they're mocking their users. The idea of deciding who your audience should be, instead of respecting users' desire to target specific groups, is just absurd.
In 2024, without a solid backend and a well-maintained audience over time, it’s almost impossible to succeed on Facebook.
Use to have huge success with FB ads but in the past 6 months it's been absolutely horrible
A relative recently did a Facebook ad campaign and mainly had to deal with a lot of spam/scammers pretending to be from Facebook posting saying they'd been reported for copyright infringement and trying to get them to click on links.
I thought I was the only one. It’s ridiculous.
that's totally normal, just ignore them.
The same thing here. All the Facebook ads I did were filled with spams. I wasted my hard earned money on Facebook ads.
I clicked on one of those links. I didn’t know. It’s been three weeks and I still have not recovered my account. I have come to terms with the fact that I have lost it.
Same here
I run events such as webinars and promote those on events websites, which works far far better than Facebook or others.
Interesting. Nice. I never thought of that.
I'm doing chiropractic seminars and doing facebooks ads, but it feels fake. Can you let me know how I can find these websites in my area? Thanks in advanced
Running Facebook Ads in 2024 is the easiest it's ever been by far for a number of reasons.
Would u like to elaborate?
I’d say for one there is a dramatic increase in local businesses wanting to run ads themselves and setting them up poorly. It’s not hard to compete when most of the people in the game are inept
You clearly haven't been running them long enough to even be able to make that judgment or you wouldn't be
I was about to jump back in after 3 years
Thanks for this video. They used to be fantastic
They CAN still work, I just feel like for the amount of effort needed, there are much better ways. They definitely aren't what they used to be unfortunately.
Your have the absolute best looking videos. Not just cinematography wise. The sharpness of the image is truly mind blowing. Well done!
Wow, thank you!
@@WesMcDowellInc I was going to ask for a video on your studio setup, but that vestaboard alone is 3K+ --- so anything you've done is likely out of my budget 😄
@@WesMcDowellIncI agree! Would you be willing to create a video showing your setup?
The same way fb ads waste users time fb is wasting advertisers time.
Thank you, Wes. I’ve thrown so much $ at FB ads over the years and stopped this year. Sales are to same, so where as I did make a little more with FB ads, that extra just went back to paying for the ads! Ugh!
I’m just promoting my guitar courses organically in my TH-cam channel now
Love your content
Woah woah woah, let me stop you here
If you got the the point where sales from ads more or less cover the ad spent, you should be getting THUSANDS of $$$ on the back end with long-term marketing and upsells
If you don't, then most likely your value ladder is not properly structured
I don't know your situation tho, but getting to the point you said you were in is already a MASSIVE success, a few tweaks may change the game completely and open that $$$ tap
Mind if I send you an email with a few questions Jason?
I had a golden Ad that got Ad fatigue after 5 to 6 months. I even refreshed but no sales, that was a while sgo. So i basically know that i need new products now, and even making a new Ad, gotta refresh every 2 weeks. But im gonna try again with a new Ad.
the endless circle of creating new winning ads every week is very stressfull. what I've noticed that even though your target audience is more than 10M, fb always try to show your ads to the same group of people, that's why ad fatigue. Why the f*uck algorithm don't show the ads to new people?!
dude my ads account has been blocked for no reason and they arn't helping me. Been emailing meta back and forth for over a week. lol..
Man I wish I saw this literally seven days ago. Just finished running a $40 a day campaign that actually did really well by Facebook metrics but resulted in nothing tangible. I sell contemporary art so it’s a high ticket item. Not sure that TH-cam would work for me because the art industry is quite snobby. Anyone else have other methods that have worked for them without having to become a content creator in addition to their current role? Or is that wishful thinking in this day and age?
I’d definitely try getting them on an email list like this video suggests. You can build a funnel which allows you to touch your customers a few times before they’re ready to purchase
maybe pinterest ads ? I"m not sure im new to marketing, but it was just a thought
This works really well now. @@TerpkeZ
It’s because it’s too much work to actually buy in your website I just looked at it
This makes sense. When i run TH-cam ads and Google ads i seem to get better results. I dont really like Facebook anymore for several reasons.
Cheap drop ship products will not work I guess
Is TH-cam work better for local service based brick and mortar businesses? As far as I am aware, TH-cam doesn't curate your content to people in your area. So is there still value in doing these over FB ads when the vast majority of views won't be local?
Great content as always Wes! The price of running ads has def become hard to justify lately. Especially when it comes to smaller individuals and companies! 😫
I do have to say tho.....it seems like more and more of your videos lately are just telling people to become youtubers. Almost like I just watched a 12min ad FOR youtube. Which is kinda at odds of what I hear from older youtube channels and what not.
Well I'm sure you know what you're doing! 👍🏿
I’m only recommending what I know works. I’m certainly not advertising TH-cam. Take the advice or leave it!
SO TECHNICALLY - Apple screwed over Meta BIG TIME from their "privacy" rules which really messed up Meta's targeting AI (BTW Apple tracks every single you do on your phone, and I mean every thing)
Yep, basically!
That’s because of the crap products sold via false ads making products look better than they really are.
Do you happen to have a source that you’re referencing for the difference ad conversion rate on the CTA/email sign ups?
So you are saying that we should quit facebook advertisement and do the youtube advertisement instead?
you must be a clown!
Did I say yt ads? Might wanna pay closer attention
Facebook ads have been scam for a few years now
Wes, you make some interesting points, but unless I'm missing the point, you compare facebook ads with youtube organic. Isn't that like comparing apples & oranges? What's your view on FB/IG organic versus YT organic?
TH-cam’s the better thing to spend time on for all the reasons mentioned
FB/IG still do organic? 😂
You taught me word press now am an OG. Thanks
Facebook ads are still relatively cheap in mu location and my business almost solely depends on Facebook ads which is a bad thing but the collapse has not yet affected some of us here(South Africa)
I've given up on FB ads. Minimal or zero sales, and really difficult to set up the adverts. It loses settings, for a start. (I could go on but I won't.)
Total waste of money and will never use again.
What product/industry were you aiming at? It might not work for all
We've been dancing around this for the last year and really felt the pain recently with facebook ads. We're ramping up much more marketing now and I think this video has helped sharpen where more time and energy should be placed. Thanks!
Zuck has totally jumped the shark on Facebook. Horrible platform now. Just trash.
I totally agree. It's a hotspot for scammers now 😢
Marketing on Facebook is very expensive education. Most new small businesses can’t afford it.
So the solution is to drop meta and become a TH-cam content creator 🤔
It’s the best solution for results yes. Not everyone has the stomach for it tho.
$2700 in management for a $1k ad budget seems a bit extreme. There are more cost efficient options out there for professionals
Facebook ads with regard to users will be the cause of the demise of Facebook! Trying to find friends’ posts is an absolute disaster. FIVE ads vs ONE post, IF YOU ARE LUCKY! I see ads daily but sometimes have to wait several days for a post that I should have seen INSTANTANEOUSLY. Greed is out of control and the harder FB makes seeing the posts we want, the more resolve hardens until one day we have all had enough and turn our backs on FB. It has happened before…
This is “ya know”…”super” 🥃
Teeth whitening brand here. £1000 daily budgets on fb ads with amazing ad creatives to only get 0.7x roas. Not even break even. Fb ads is over unfortunately.
Very interesting and informative. I am one of failure to waste 800$ budget on meta. Just stuck now, don't know what to do next. Had spent 10k for my white label brand. But can't get any sale. Looking to get assist for low budget marketing
I was running ads for local services and they removed a lot of the targeting and it made it not worth it, paying $37 for leads 4 counties over just wasn't worth it.
But when you are remerketing what objective are you using? Generally? Traffic awareness or conversion l?
I literally came here from a different video of yours saying to run facebook and instagram ads for $10 a day. 🤣
Yep opinions change when circumstances change 😜
Do Facebook ads take into account the activity that target account has? What is they haven’t used their account in a long time but it Jesus trying to advertise to them?
Yeah, TH-cam definitely work for me!
For the past 4 years fb ads have gone the route of Craigslist. Seems like 90% are those fake 49 dollar ebike or 49 crafting desk etc. Very scammy
There's no more consumer confidence in those ads.
Thoughts?
What do you think of places like adinspiration to find winning ads and adapt them to your campaign?
We do amazing on Facebook for the home service industry.
That guy is was cheap tho. Give him a try and report back how it went
We are giving Digital Marketing Services in INR currency, it saves time and money both.
Lmao, you're completely wrong. It's gotten harder, and you have to be a way better/smarter marketer, but it's still the best advertising platform in existence.
Awesome. BUt its harder, and its a ton of moving parts, and ppl have to be an expert to do it? Kinda my point, lol.
@@WesMcDowellInc Yeah I may have spoken too soon.
I aggree with you @thenecroyeti and honestly, as a marketer who's been building his skills for the past 8 years, I am happy it's that way. Crushing the competition is easier because no one puts nearly as enough effort as they should into creating content and having a solid funnel in place. At your level @wes you should really make it work though?!
@@BboyTibzYeah I agree - it feels like people in the comments here are getting mad at the fact that you now require skill to do FB ads while in reality I feel that’s a fantastic thing because the entry barriers to do fb ads is now higher and you now need a decent campaign strategy to perform rather than everyone targeting everyone with horrible ads - I mean that just could not possibly work in the long term as people would get sick of sh*t ads everywhere 😂
Thank you for this. Subscribed.
Are you planning to have some sort of digital product around youtube soon?
You have amazing video editing skills. What tools do you use for video editing?
im his editor i use davinci resolve,i can edit yours too if you are intrested
Umm, ☝️ he is NOT my editor, lol. Don't lie for business dude! Shady...
@@the_first_step1536 Busted. Shameless. 😂😂
What objective do you use on Facebook Ads for gaining more opt in for a lead magnet?
It just use server side and primary data to solve the data problem.
I love how you always mention TH-cam at the end of your videos haha it really is the best advice
What is the alternative why to advertise?
He mentions it in the video
Kinda like this. Really the content machine thing is true regardless of even FB ads. Any social including FB which does end-up in social too. Thanks. Nice thing to think about. 👏
“Whatever is new, is not better” - Arno Wingen
Curious Wes what your thoughts are on eye contact in making your videos for TH-cam? How do creators do it? I find it just so weird looking into the webcam and hard to keep track of what I'm wanting to say
The marketing part of the business is really burning me out.
Cheers so much and this was my recommendation in 2018
How funny I've come full circle 😊❤
The option google is shitty , keeps on suspending your GMC account at the drop of a hat...
No idea how that’s related to this video but ok!
Never again will I advertise on FB. Total scam
I don’t want to show my face. How do I make TH-cam videos then?
I woukdnt even bother honestly. My only suggestion is to get over that fear.
Hello! Do you have a video that explains how to start a TH-cam channel for a small, tiny business? Thanks!!
I'd recommend starting by figuring out what your goal is with the channel, and what your content pillars are going to be. This will give you lots of clarity on what topics to make videos on. The biggest thing is to just start, and learn as you grow!
Agreed on most accounts. However, Facebook ad success may be product/industry specific. I'd be interested in knowing how many marketers have given up on Facebook because they are selling services or targeting wholesale leads. Facebook has really pushed their eCommerce integrations - is DTC still working for quality products?
I heard it works well for print on demand
@@yoyoyo3439 I cannot tell if this is sarcasm. My honest opinion is that quality POD products are a rare breed, and more rare are the ones you can add a viable margin to that will not ultimately turn customers away. The "Use my ultimate Facebook plan to sell POD with minimal investment" pipeline only results in "gurus" getting wealthy by stripping course money from high schoolers.
I absolutely agree with what you are saying.
they were garbage from the off :/
So glad I subscribed
Amazing content as always Wes! Could you do a video on your thoughts about Google ads?
Yea I'll add it to the list!
Awesome!, so actually establishing a 'brand' or a personal brand with value, building trust & rapport (the funnel game) is proven across history to be the best regardless of the algorithms and platform updates and it's cheaper to get emails than converting on spot or converting sooner!
Awesome video. Thanks for this insight.
We owned a Mom & Pop brick-and-mortar gift shop for 10 years. We boosted posts and did Facebook ads but never had one single conversion. My advice is just don't.
You did that for 10 years??? And not even 1 conversion????😢😢😢😢
Lol no smart marketer boosts posts.
Just curious how you tracked if the ads were bringing people in or not? Did you offer a discount code for people who came in your store? Did you ask every customer how they found out about you? What was the goal of the ads? to drive sales, get people in the store? In 10 years how did you track the ads results?
This is an epic video. Well done Wes!
Thanks!
7:35 3 step process
Nice video, but there are clear benefits with You tube with service businesses, especially higher priced ones. How about a video for product based businesses, below or around 100$ AOV
I don’t specialize in product businesses, so I stay in my lane. Sorry!
I run fb ads for three business. The AOV For 2 of them is 35 but the other is around 100. Our Roas is between 2 and 4, not counting the orders we also make on Amazon (a lot of people will buy on Amazon after seeing a fb ad instead of our own site). we post organically almost every day, the videos that go viral organically we test as ads. It is the only thing I have seen work for meta ads lately. We also send product out to content creators in exchange for reviews because constant content is the only way to keep making sales. It isn’t like the old days where you can put out ads and scale them for months on end. You really do have to keep creating content and then pushing the winners until they get ad fatigue, at least that is our experience. I would love to hear from others out there doing this too.
@@pacificnorthpets We are in the same boat. Our AOV atm is around 80€ (based in the EU), and we struggle with high CAC (adspent around 35-40€ per purchase + ad on costs of around another 30 (COGS, fullfilment, shipping etc). That doesn't account for fixed costs, and we look creators & content as fixed. For us ROAS of 2x is needed just to not loose money, acquire a customer and then try to make it up down the line. Man, sometimes Im envy the service businesses :)
@@WesMcDowellInc Thanks anyway for the answer :)
What about TH-cam adds?
This is a great video!
Thank you, Matt
Exactly!
I now enjoy your content more
Happy to hear!
Great analysis
Thank you!
❤
Thank you!
It's just not worth even trying to start a business these days.
Thats not true.. did you stick around till the end?
@@WesMcDowellInc yes. Make youtube videos. 😒
There is plenty of opportunities out there. It's about bringing value to the market place. No value, no business. Most want easy money yet have no experience or skills to offer.
@@thedrvn This is completely true, you must show the result they want or need and emphasize what it would do to improve what they're currently going through. in design and marketing there are 6 possible pain points for businesses I've collected data on it and never has a business not fit into 1 of these 6 categories. all you need to do is COLLECT CONVINCING DATA, KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT COMES WITH STARTING YOUR SPECIFIC BUSINESS IN YOUR INDUSTRY< FIND YOUR TARGET PEOPLE AND POINTS, GAIN KNOWLEDGE< and THEN ACT. practice what you do for a little gain expertise in your field and execute your plan to greatness. There are lots of bumps but if you think you can you likely can, remember everything great comes with time, if you don't have patience you'll never get anywhere!
Wes, I don't like how Facebook does that ...they target people who are "most likely", but I don't want to target those people! I want to target a certain interest regardless. It's so frustrating...I gave up on FB ads. Seems to be nothing but spammers seeing my ads. Instead, I will try cold outreach to develop into warm.
@julieta_solayao #SimplicityIsMe 😊