Why FBX Isn't Getting Clicks

From CTR Pioneers Ren & Stimpy

File this one under the "Of Course" section... Facebook has chopped a dozen-odd companies from the public-facing section of its FBX partner list, while seemingly reallocating assets and focus to its more mobile-facing Website Custom Audiences project.

The astute reader will be shocked, shocked to learn that click-through rates for the FBX program have been "abysmal", with response rates diving down, down, down to the regions seen by, well, every other publisher providing space for every other static retargeting ad on every other Web site in every other country. 

If only we could find the magical advertising opportunity that consumers pay the same amount of attention to, year after year!

And the fact that CTR for FBX is following the exact same pattern that every other new online advertising rollout has followed, for the past 20+ years that online advertising has rolled out, shouldn't keep Charlie Brown from, this time for sure, kicking that football. 

The mobile screen is so personal! (Just like the laptop was in 2000.) The ads are going to be so limited and relevant! (Until the CTR goes down, and publishers squeeze more in, because the law of diminishing returns doesn't count, for, um, some reason. I guess. If you are feeling crude, this is where you can reference drug abuse.) Dynamic content ensures the user will care! (Unless the data is outdated, or misreading the consumer's actual intent, the way it has for declining CTR in remarketing ads since, well, remarketing was introduced. In 2006.)

Meanwhile in advertising mediums that don't provide enough data to be punished, Super Bowl ad rates remain ever-growing, outdoor and radio and print still exist in CPMs that aren't race to the bottom, and no one has to worry about the 30 to 50% viewability issue involved due to bots, malware and the like.

So what's a lead generation professional to do?

Well, if you're smart enough to learn from your mistakes, you try to stop caring about CTR, and care only about conversion. You accept that it's a losing game over time, but that there's money to be made in the right spots, with the right offer and creative. You keep your eyes and ears open for the next short-term boost, and react with measured acceptance when you can to things like new screens, or native. You remain skeptical to anyone's claims of boosting CTR, since that just opens up the door to a host of abuses.

And you wait, patiently or not, for better tools to make this increasingly primitive way of doing business to pass into the dustbin of history, and for people to get sophisticated enough to understand that clicks don't matter. Purchases do. 

And that there are a lot of different ways, beyond See Ad Click Ad, to get to purchase.

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You've read this far, so by all means, connect with me personally on LinkedIn.You can always email me at davidlmountain at gmail.com. And, as always, I'd love to hear what you think about this in the comments.