💯Focus Unpopular opinion: Ads are a waste of time

[roydan]

Nah net not gross.

Yeah I figured it out as I kept going. Decided to keep that in because I didn't want to to waste typing energy.

Yeah but your spending money to get all that information when you can get it for a time investment rather than money.

It's not replacing anything, it's in addition to it.

They still have to be paid. It comes out of the money the business has.

If I sell nothing from ads do I still not have to pay for the advert or the person's time running it then?

That's a fixed cost.

The person running the ads.
The ads that don't convert.

You need to pay the guy, absolutely, but you're starting from the middle. You start by testing stuff, right? Establishing CPA, at this point the same team manages it *or* there's a small addition in labor because you're operating in low scale. By the time you really need to hire people you already proved it's profitable.

You're wrong to assume you're testing at scale, you combined low ROAS and significant labor costs.


Skipped the last part because I think this covered it as well.

 

[t2van]

What you're talking about here @t2van is a business with deep internal problems that should be fixed or the business closed down, throwing ads at it won't solve the problem because business itself is flawed. AKA: Company is too broke for ads. So don't do ads. Simple.

That's sort of simplistic view.

My point really of the thread is in my opinion ads is the quick fix or "easy" route in lots of people's minds.

But it's not.

You can invest time instead of money to get the same number of impressions or however you want to term it views or whatever but for a different outlay.

The time method will win over a longer term Vs money.

Problem is people are shit at content and spend money on ads often creating shit ads and then end up in a hole lol

 

[t2van]

You need to pay the guy, absolutely, but you're starting from the middle. You start by testing stuff, right? Establishing CPA, at this point the same team manages it *or* there's a small addition in labor because you're operating in low scale. By the time you really need to hire people you already proved it's profitable.

But all that testing costs money. It's still a money investment.

My points on scale and this last bit about hiring people and becoming profitable are two things.


1. If a business is playing the numbers game or a scaling model thinking I'll make 2 on a sale which just scrapes me by, if I get 1m customers that can 2m for me.

But it's not. Because there's no profit there to actually grow and scale costs you more money than you realise.


2. Time you hire people you don't actually know if it is actually profitable and this falls into the scale issue also above

Say I'm working from my bedroom. I boom and have exploded growth I'm making good money.

Now to hire staff I got insurance I need a building, I got to pay that person. All my costs now change.

Just because the business is profitable with me in a bedroom doesn't mean it is once I get a warehouse and staff and all them things go with it.

This falls inline with what I've talked about before not understanding if you got a well paid job or a business.


Option 2 can work with a time investment (organic) over money (ads) as your growth isn't tied to a financial cost.

Introducing ads can work later.

But still I think it's seen as a shortcut.



As I've said anyone can do what I do spend 30k on ads or whatever it's not special. It's no different to anyone who comes into market.


Putting the time in first to build up your organic positions is what makes you unique from operating compared to all your competitors.

You spent the time first and do the money investment later.

It also protects you from competitors to a degree..

 

[SilverClouds]

Ads boost what you already have. If you have shit and you throw ads at it you'll multiply shit. Ads won't magically fix internal business problems.

Time you hire people you don't actually know if it is actually profitable and this falls into the scale issue also above

Say I'm working from my bedroom. I boom and have exploded growth I'm making good money.

Now to hire staff I got insurance I need a building, I got to pay that person. All my costs now change.

Just because the business is profitable with me in a bedroom doesn't mean it is once I get a warehouse and staff and all them things go with it.

This falls inline with what I've talked about before not understanding if you got a well paid job or a business.

This is exactly what I'm talking about and why I don't sell ads to businesses that are too small for them.

 

[t2van]

Ads boost what you already have. If you have shit and you throw ads at it you'll multiply shit. Ads won't magically fix internal business problems.

This is exactly what I'm talking about and why I don't sell ads to businesses that are too small for them.

Yes I guess but the business doesn't even have to be small either.

Like say you had a company with a 100k budget to get 1m new impressions on ads would you work with them?

What it the business has 100k and wants to get 10m impressions with the same budget.

Are they too small then or would the investment be better spent in time Vs money.

Some businesses will try to get that 10m new impressions with 100k and will never do it due to money constraints.

Ie ads don't work

But if they spent the time resource instead of money it's possible and more within their reach / scope.

 

[SilverClouds]

Yes I guess but the business doesn't even have to be small either.

Like say you had a company with a 100k budget to get 1m new impressions on ads would you work with them?

What it the business has 100k and wants to get 10m impressions with the same budget.

Are they too small then or would the investment be better spent in time Vs money.

Some businesses will try to get that 10m new impressions with 100k and will never do it due to money constraints.

Ie ads don't work

But if they spent the time resource instead of money it's possible and more within their reach / scope.

Bad cash flow is still technically broke... Exactly why I complain I'm broke but I keep bouncing between a villa and serviced apartment with rooftop pool. There are different financial problems that you can have where you still externally appear as well off but you're actually in deep trouble and any small thing will destroy you financially. There's something between extremes of slums broke and trust fund kid .

Business must be stable enough to sustain ads. Exactly why I'm not using ads for my business and started working on delegating delivery, fixing my branding, geos, company & tax setup, etc, etc. Honestly at this point I'm not even in right mental state to go on sales calls. So we're talking about 'business' with moody salesperson, no capacity to deliver at scale and shitty brand. I'd surely loose budget if I ran ads to crap like that. But if internally company would be healthy then why not.

 

[t2van]

Bad cash flow is still technically broke...

Nah cash flow issues is not technically broke not in a business, cash flow issues arise from rapid growth, over development or funding of a specific thing. It becomes a problem if you ignore it early on, there are tons of multi million pound businesses and bigger that have cash flow issues.

Id not class them as "broke"

Exactly why I complain I'm broke but I keep bouncing between a villa and serviced apartment with rooftop pool. There are different financial problems that you can have where you still externally appear as well off but you're actually in deep trouble and any small thing will destroy you financially. There's something between extremes of slums broke and trust fund kid .

That's just bad choices. Live within your means.

This also classes up most of society and everything that's wrong with it. Someone driving a new car, living in a fancy house looks successful but doesn't have a pot to piss in.

Someone in an old banger that gets A to B and has a modest house has money in the bank.

Living up to others expectations and how you want to be perceived is the quickest path to ruin.

Business must be stable enough to sustain ads. Exactly why I'm not using ads for my business and started working on delegating delivery, fixing my branding, geos, company & tax setup, etc, etc. Honestly at this point I'm not even in right mental state to go on sales calls. So we're talking about 'business' with moody salesperson, no capacity to deliver at scale and shitty brand. I'd surely loose budget if I ran ads to crap like that. But if internally company would be healthy then why not.

Business doesn't need to be stable to run ads from that logic its like saying you will keep takings someone money and for them to keep paying for it until it works.

So if an advert underperforms or the targets are not met the business needs to keep throwing money at it till it does?

That's the kind of replies and attitudes I run into when speaking with ad people when ever I decide now is the time to experiment with them.

Keep throwing money at something till it works doesn't work. Its that kind of thinking why I say ads are a waste of time. ALL that time could be invested into something else. The cash along with it.

If it requires a business to sustain something then it's best not doing it in the first place, the time and money would be better invested elsewhere.

 

[t2van]

Going back to clarify my actual point since I think it's gotten tangled up in a different debate (and wilder ones).

I'm not saying ads can never be profitable, or that margins/LTV/upsells don't matter. That's a real conversation, just not the one I'm having.

My point is narrower: impressions can be acquired with one of two resources — money or time. If you buy them with money, the number you can get is capped by your budget. Spend £10k, get £10k worth of impressions, stop spending, impressions stop.

If you build them with time (content, SEO, audience), there's no equivalent hard ceiling — the constraint is your time and consistency, not your bank balance, and what you build keeps generating impressions after you've stopped actively working on it.

Part of why I think ads get oversold in the first place: half the ecommerce content out there is some guy showing a screenshot of turnover going up and to the right with zero breakdown of spend, margin, returns, or what it actually cost to get there. Revenue isn't profit and impressions aren't customers, but that's the pitch — ads as the answer, no substance behind it. In most cases what you're actually looking at is a short-term gain that doesn't hold up without real time and money invested behind it, not a shortcut.

So for a business that's cash-constrained, time is the more accessible and more efficient resource for the specific goal of reaching a given impression number — separate from whether ads would eventually be profitable for them.

Two things this is not saying, since these keep coming up:

• "Ads don't work" — they can work fine, that's a margins/economics question.
• "Fix your business and ads will work" — probably true for some businesses, but also a different question from the one I'm asking.

Also — kind of funny that this is a marketing forum and everyone walked straight past the obvious engagement-bait title and got super fucking defensive from the jump.

Anyway. Ads are still a waste of time. Time vs money, that's the whole argument.

 

[clark]

Anyone who disagrees or has any objection to you is either anti-women, wants to sleep with you or you make up some other kind of nonsense.


Honestly, you are just fucking insane.

Oh boy, this escalated quickly

 

[Champagne]

Y'all need to chill, lol. It's not that big of a deal. Let everyone have their own opinion without getting personal. So, no personal attacks going forward, please

 

[SilverClouds]

Oh boy, this escalated quickly

Yeah wtf

 

[roydan]

Didn't know ROI and margins talks could be this exciting lol..

 

[RiskyStuff]

With big picture it works.
Have you got tons of cash in your bank account?
Instead of buying 15th ETF, take that money, find a good affiliate offer with good ROAS, and promote the fck out of it.

It's just one example. There are so many games you can play with ads... but it all takes your time.

And time is the exact reason I don't touch paid ads. I like to do 4 hours of "work" a week like Tim Ferris.

If one day it'll become impossible to generate search traffic and social media bans the possibility of having more than 1 account, I'll think about ads.