2 builders who never spoke to each other

Check where your ads land after a site change

Redirects and ad accounts are maintained by different people and nobody tells the person running the campaigns, so verify every destination after any change to the site's structure. One company paid for clicks landing on a missing page for months, and the giveaway was subtle: those visitors still converted in double digits because they used the navigation to find the homepage. Read the account notification mail as well, since an unread policy warning becomes a suspension and weeks of lost revenue while you are away.

The method

1. 01

   Re-check the destination of every paid ad after any change to the site's URL structure, since redirects and ad accounts are maintained by different people.

2. 02

   Re-check that your ad destination URLs still resolve whenever site redirects change, since nobody tells the person running the ads.

3. 03

   Watch the notification email on your ad accounts. A policy warning you do not read turns into a suspension and weeks of lost revenue.

What it returned

• 404

  Netlify was paying for AdWords clicks that landed on a 404 page; those visitors still signed up at a rate only slightly below the site-wide average.

• 404

  One company spent thousands of dollars for several months sending ad clicks to a 404 page; the 404 still converted in double digits because visitors used the nav to reach the homepage.

• Their display ads were suspended for several weeks because the founder was travelling and missed the compliance email. He calls the loss significant and the fix easy.

Sources

• Digitizing a Startup & Making $170,000/MonthMehdi Kajbaf · failory.com · During the process of building & growing Matboard and More, which were the worst mistakes you committed? · undated
• Selling Software to Snake Charmers, and Other MistakesGreg Kogan · gkogan.co · The Most Expensive 404 Page · 2018-01-06
• Why Ad Campaigns FailGreg Kogan · gkogan.co · Know-Better Errors · 2017-01-17