Week 2 Results of the Google Ads Campaign

We are offering an update on the experiment with Google Ads. This is the week 2 update.

One of the things I was told for a very long time now is that I should do advertising to bolster the presence of Freezenet. This was not from one person, but a number of people. Personally, I resisted this because I felt that it was best to exhaust all other possible options before resorting to ads. What’s more, at the time I received this advice a vast majority of the time, my other problem was that I didn’t have the budget to carry this through. With respect to the latter, that problem has been sort of solved thanks to strategic investing. With respect to the former, I technically didn’t exhaust absolutely all of my other possible options, but felt the time was right to begin experimenting with different things such as advertising since I know that there is a great deal of interest to find out if such a thing actually works or not.

Indeed, one advantage that Freezenet has is the fact that there is an actual product behind the ads. When we say that you can explore music on this site without someone’s opinion getting in the way, well, that is a real thing. When we say that you can check out breaking news on digital rights, well, we got that. In fact, when we say that you can check out cool and interesting video game reviews and first impression videos, well, we got that. There’s no scam involved. The articles in question are not paywalled. There’s no crypto-mining involved or something untoward. Unlike a vast majority of ads out there, you get great free content. All I have on the side is a request for financial support. and that’s it.

Despite this advantage of actually putting in the work to provide an amazing product, I also happen to know that quality has not been a selling point for many years now. As I’m finding out, the conclusion is that ads may be an extremely overrated and overpriced thing. What people don’t generally understand is that advertising is extremely expensive. For instance, it’s not exactly uncommon that TV advertisers spend tens of thousands for a spot on the airwaves. This isn’t even getting into the absurdity that is sports advertising.

Yet, even with simply going for Google advertising, the ads don’t come cheap either. When I mentioned to one of the people that was saying that I should do advertising that I spent $1,400 on ads for a month, his eyes shot open and was completely shocked I would spend that much. The punchline was that Google was telling me that my ad budget was far too low and that I should actually be spending to the tune of about $400 per day. I recall him very quickly changing his mind and saying that advertising may not be worth it. With the way things are going, he seems to be very correct on that assessment.

Last week, I offered my first update on how well things are going and the numbers are very grim. I won’t rewrite the whole report here, but the dollar figures at the time had me paying $414.97. This only to earn a paltry $1.48 so far (and even that is misleading because that is assuming all revenues is derived from the advertising when, in fact, I got a sizable traffic boost from one of my articles unexpectedly going viral (not that I’m complaining about the traffic). This over top of the ambient traffic I already get that has nothing to do with the advertising.

This week, I have an update on what the numbers are looking like. It’s not looking much better.

On April 8, the ads generated 514 clicks. Internal statistics show that the site got 903 clicks in total.

On April 9, the ads generated 16 clicks (no, that is not a typo. Sixteen clicks.). Internal statistics show the site generated 456 clicks in total.

On April 10, the ads generated 314 clicks. Internal statistics show the site generated 916 clicks.

On April 11, the ads generated 5 clicks (again, not a typo. It got five clicks suggesting each click was valued at $10 if taking the average daily spend.) Internal statistics show the site got 789 clicks.

On April 12, the ads generated 492 clicks. Internal statistics show the site got 1,184 clicks in total.

Finally, on April 13, the ads generated 745 clicks. Internal statistics show the site got 1,950 clicks.

In total, the cost of this whole campaign to date has cost $675.46. So far this month, the Adsense is showing revenue of $1.84. So, still not over the $2 mark as of this writing. In total, this campaign so far has gotten a net return on investment of -$673.62. There has been no revenue from either Patreon or Ko-Fi for this month.

While I’m sure someone out there is going to argue that you’ll get the brand recognition and that the benefits are going to carry on long after the ad campaign is over, it’s extremely difficult to see this actually being a thing after running the numbers. There hasn’t been any new commentators and there hasn’t been any signals that the traffic Freezenet is getting from the ads is going to result in long term benefits.

At any rate, I’m still unconvinced I’ve done anything other than throw away $1,400 into a giant pit. I’m open to the idea of being wrong on this, but the results so far are not looking good.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Bluesky and Facebook.