But why are Facebook ads failing? For years now, advertisers have been shouting from the rooftops about how Facebook is this treasure trove of information about customers. They can’t wait to target their ads so perfectly that it’ll only be shown at exactly the right moment to the exact customer.
This generation of marketers have found fool’s gold: the idea that targeting your ads based the attributes of people will make them more likely to click and buy.
It’s fool’s gold because people don’t buy things because they are male, between the ages of 18 and 25, who work in technology. Those attributes are merely a correlation that says “in general, people with these attributes might buy our product.” It’s why a “great” click through rate in online advertising is less than 1%.
As of this moment, Facebook’s stock is trading at $30.12.