[malfist]

Google ads are often like paying someone to stand in front of your business and hand out flyers to everyone going inside.

Sure, a lot of your visitors were handed a flyer by google before they showed up in your store, but were any of them new customers?

[frodo8sam]

It's worse, you're paying them so your competitor isn't standing in front of your store convincing them not to be your costumer.

You can either buy the top spot on queries that are looking for you or google will sell it to your competitor.

[falcor84]

It's even worse, because it's Google who built a high platform in front of your store in the first place, with comfy chairs for your competitors to sit on.

[hermitcrab]

Very true. So you end up on paying for a lot of clicks from existing customers who type your product name into Google and click on the first thing that comes up, which is increasingly an ad.

I used to advertise in Adwords on the name of my products, but I no longer bother.

[bombcar]

The vast majority of people who search product name want product name not knockoff product similar - and so let the competitors buy the name for ads.

[darth_avocado]

Google ads is bad but wait till you reach the ads on all the streaming platforms. Watching the same ad roll for the 20th time in the same evening is like the door to door salesman that rung your doorbell for the 20th time and kept loudly screaming about their product while you’re trying to enjoy a peaceful meal. If anything, I’m going to actively start hating your brand or product.

[mrguyorama]

It's entirely intentional. Companies would rather you "hate" their brand than forget their brand.

The reality is that a shockingly high percentage of people just don't get upset about that. Pay attention to anyone using a web browser without an ad blocker. They are so deep in the learned helplessness hole they don't even complain as their web page takes ages to load and reflow while they want to read, and they just silently click skip on all three youtube ads.

The ads work great on them. Think of how many people bought HeadOn.

[stetrain]

And if you don't pay them, the spots in front of your store are instead filled by people handing out flyers about your competitor down the street.

They don't just take credit for people that were coming to your site anyway, they actively steer them away with competing ads if you aren't paying enough.

[hdseggbj]

As long as people keep paying scammers they'll keep scamming. I've lost a lot of money and opportunity refusing to submit to extortion.

[bpicolo]

That would be reminder/retentive advertising, which is also an intentional outcome of many ads.