Advertising done wrong

Recently I ran a 30-day video ad campaign that was supposed to drive traffic to my website.

The results?

Very few people actually made it there.

What surprised me wasn’t the lack of traffic. Advertising doesn’t always work the way we hope.

What surprised me was the post-campaign conversation.

Most of the feedback I received focused on what was wrong with my website. Now, I’ll be the first to admit my website isn’t perfect. There are things I can improve, and there always will be.

But when the primary goal of a campaign is to get people to the website, and that goal isn’t achieved, it’s hard to take criticism of the destination seriously when very few visitors ever arrived there in the first place.

To their credit, they offered additional days on the campaign.

What I was looking for, though, was a little more self-evaluation and a little less finger-pointing.

One of the things I’ve learned after 20+ years in business is that when something doesn’t go as planned, the first place I look is in the mirror.

Sometimes the problem is me.
Sometimes it’s the product.
Sometimes it’s the process.

But accountability starts by looking inward before looking outward.

Lesson learned.