Comment to 'Goodbye, Facebook and your useless results. [UPDATED]'
  • Hi,
    First I'd like to say, there's many many things I don't like about facebook, starting with Mark Zuckerberg. However, your story about your results mean absolutely nothing at all to me. Why?
    It reminds me of something that just happened to me.... I recently went to visit my son who lives a couple of states away. He's an ace mechanic and he makes a killing at it, so naturally he has a garage that Jay Leno would be envious of, complete with every tool you could imagine that a mechanic might ever need. Well, while I was there I needed to work on the brakes on my car, so I asked my son if I could use his garage and tools.
    After about an hour and a half of struggling with trying to change my brake pads, I became so frustrated that I just gave up. Seeing that, my son asked me what the problem was. Because I didn't want to admit that I had no idea what I was doing, I jokingly said, "it's your tools, I don't know why but they just won't work for me". My son then helped me change my brake pads after we both had a good laugh about my comment. But, can you imagine how utterly stupid my comment would have sounded, had I been seriously blaming my shortcomings on the tools I was using. Sounds pretty ridiculous doesn't it?
    The truth is, no matter how much you might not like facebook or Zuckerberg, many many thousands of people make millions and millions of dollars from using the advertising tools and methods that facebook provides. Another cold hard truth, that most people won't admit to, is that they've entered a business that has an extremely small chance of ever being successful to begin with, with a product so flawed only God can fix it, relying on incompetent friends and family members to make it a success, so naturally they blame everything and everybody except their own shortcomings.
    I'm not saying you're not justified in deciding to drop your facebook advertising. Maybe you are. You are right about the numbers not adding up. You said you spent $4, 500 on a year and a half campaign, which amounted to over $100 a day. Those are the numbers that don't add up. By my calculations, a year and a half is 540 days, times $100 a day, is $54,000. So basically if you spent $4,500 in a year and a half that's $8 a day. Which is a far cry from $100 a day.
    My whole point to posting this comment is simply to illustrate that if facebook didn't work for Andrew Boone, fine it didn't work. But that does NOT mean that it was facebook's fault that it didn't work, OR that it won't work for anyone else. The most successful business people in the world KNOW that when something doesn't work, the direction to look in to find the problem is inward. Outside forces almost NEVER have anything at all to do with failure, ever.
    I've been watching boonex literally for years and years now, and what I'd like to see you do is, first of all, fix your product if that's possible. Secondly, learn how to market it. And thirdly, tell us what DOES work. For years now I've heard how "we're getting there" and "this is going to be THE end all to all the problems" and all that kind of hype. NONE of that kind of stuff is helping anybody, even you. Please STOP blaming everything and everybody for years and years of failures that rest squarely on YOUR shoulders.
    • Thank you for pointing it out. I have no opinion on Mark Zuckerberg personally and indeed try to question myself first in every situation where I fail. That's the reason why we tried 41 campaigns and spend so much money. Now, I am convinces that very few people can actually make Facebook Ads works for them, and I find it difficult to find any evidence of the opposite. There are some positive reports from early Facebook Ads days when their ads very incredibly cheap. There are also some positive reports from marketing people, who can "sell" those fake results to their employers or customers in some form. Direct ROI observations that show these ads making money in mainstream situations is nowhere to be found. Like I said, sometime you can get it to work when your product manages to create that "viral" magic, but in general I think it's a lot like national TV - only good for huge companies that can blow huge budgets to create awareness about new products.
      I've also posted more detailed update following your other questions ($$$, numbers, etc.). Please have a look in the main post now.