Ran the same Facebook ad for 8 months before I caught my mistake

I had this lead gen campaign going for a local roofing company in Austin. Spent about $2,400 total. Conversions looked fine on the surface. Then I actually looked at the pixel data and realized the thank you page was never firing. Every single lead was a fake. My client fired me after I showed him the numbers. Anyone else ever base decisions on bad tracking for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_max1mo ago

Every single lead was a fake." That's brutal. My buddy ran a campaign for a gym for like a year and a half, turns out his lead form was broken after a software update and nobody actually filled it out. Didn't realize until his client got suspicious and asked for proof. How did you finally catch yours?

jadej501mo ago

Oh man, I feel this so hard. I ran ads for a boutique coffee shop for almost 10 months and thought their newsletter signups were doing great. Turns out the email capture form on my landing page was never actually sending the data to their mailchimp (like it just put the info into a void, no error message or anything). The client kept asking why their list wasn't growing and I was like "well the ads are working" until I actually tested the form myself and got nothing. Felt like such an idiot, especially since I'd already spent like $3,000 on ads by that point.

logan6581mo ago

Jadej50 holy crap, that's honestly one of the worst tech fails I've ever heard of. Like the form just eating data without a peep? That's some next level silent failure right there. I'm surprised you only got suspicious after 10 months, I would have lost my mind way sooner. But hey, at least you figured it out before dumping another $3,000 into the void, right? Your coffee shop client must have been pissed when they found out. At least now you know to double check those forms manually before launch, I guess we all learn that one the hard way.