[alangibson]

Confirmation bias is a killer. The lesson you learned is worth much more than you lost.

I can't stress this enough: don't use search ads for anything but laser targeted direct response marketing. It's somewhere between useless and actively harmful for anything else.

The only things I do anymore are 1. talk to actual sales prospects and 2. content marketing. Everything else is a handout to Google and Facebook shareholders.

[simple10]

Agreed on Google Search Ads. I've run a lot of pre-launch campaigns, mostly for e-comm and SaaS products. Meta ads is still the best way to go if you're going the ad route. YouTube is 2nd best option if you're good at making videos. For growth hacking, Producthunt and Facebook & LinkedIn groups can work. For SaaS, LinkedIn ads can work if you really know your audience and know how to run ads. Cold email also works well for SaaS if provide upfront value and not spam people.

But Google Search Ads is highly competitive and lots of bot traffic. IMO, it's best for retargeting during pre-launch.

[qingcharles]

PPC is the absolute fastest way to lose your shirt.

One thing that stands out is that OP wasn't bidding on "intent" keywords, sounded more like people were searching for info on Lightroom API than a product they would pay for. That's much harder traffic to convert.