What is your biggest marketing fail?

Okay, I know everyone's perfect and they've never failed in their life, right? Yeah, get out of town. Seriously... start walking!

Okay, but being serious: what was your biggest marketing fail and why? How did you do it? What were you thinking when you did it? Did anybody warn you? Were the odds for you or against you? Did you just get unlucky? Tell me all the juicy bits of your story.

 

Don't get carried away spending on PPC advertising. Several years back I wasted thousands in hopes of hitting it big with PPC advertising. Don't get me wrong it's a great way to advertise, but it is also addictive and can become like gambling. Next thing you know you've spent $100 and $1000 there with no or little ROI.

 

Qwikad, thanks for sharing. I have been in a similar boat, so I know what you mean. What did you do instead that did work, when you realized too much PPC advertising was not getting you anywhere?

 

Believe it or not I did ebay, craigslist and backpage advertising instead. Got some quality traffic and leads, but then I realized that the business I was in back then was a dying business (I was selling liquid vitamins) , so I eventually switched to something else. It was a good experience though, I grew a lot in my understanding how online business, sales, etc. worked.

 

Glad to hear it worked out for you in the end. Do you spend much on PPC anymore?

 

I do, but I don't spend nearly as much on it. I sell services, not products this time (I try to stay on 3-4 pages which still gives me enough following yet my pay per click is fairly low).

What was your negative experience with PPC advertising?

 

I was paying way too much to run an e-commerce store from which I didn't make any money. However, I learned from it and switched to a free secure platform where I'll stay 'til I make more money.

 

Well, I spent $200 buying ads on buysellads only to find out i had 4 click from it.
Iam not blaming buysell ads but it could have been my own ad which people did not click. I could have used that money is other ways...

 

My biggest failure is not working in time-table/discipline!

 

My biggest failure was an online shopping project, I don't even want to talk about it.