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Sav Tripodi

Oct 30, 2023

Just Run an Ad: The Neglect of Website Conversions

Sav Tripodi holding up text in his hands that reads "Just Run and Ad" with a line crossing through it.
Just Run an Ad, a shameless Nike rip off.

The good old solution. Just run an ad, get the business.

What folly.

“Just run an ad”: the dream that social media companies want to sell businesses to get their greasy fingers on their money.

Oh you haven’t heard? An ad a day keeps the doctor away.

Says the fake doctors called social media companies that bully and pester you until you buy their ads.

Before you get your pitch forks and knifes out I want to clarify that I am not against ads, value exists in them as I explain towards the end. Instead I want to highlight that I see many companies just run an ad and outright neglect their website conversions.

If conversions suck… well, you guessed it, just buy more ads. The endless ad pit that makes social media companies handsome rich. Have you ever heard of a social media company that recommends you run less ads?

Imagine this conversation:

Me: Hi Mr Social Media Company, I want to run more ads please.

Social Media Company: Wow, hold up, you have run enough, have you not noticed your website conversions aren’t up? You probably should focus on fixing up your website or working on your product instead of running more ads.

A level headed response that would never happen.

Some people brag to me that they land business purely from ads. Sure, traffic driven to the website through ads makes sense. However, if people struggle to checkout or fail to purchase a product then will another ad campaign fix that problem? How many clients do companies lose from a lack of investment in their website?

Let me put it more succinctly: Ads fail to fix bad websites. Competent software engineers and designers fix bad websites.

An ad, at the end of the day, consists of a one time spend. An investment in the website remains for customers that arrive from yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Why spend a boatload of money on ads to send people to an average website?

Also, a customer that clicks on an ad most likely knows nothing about a company. Does the company really want to lose a potential customer just because of a bad impression from a website that they failed to invest in? Surely the answer is no.

As a Software Engineer I build premium, custom, and beautiful websites for a living. After I finish a website some of my clients ask if I offer ad services and I always reply with a clear no. I use my expertise to build premium websites that match the unique brand of a business. I solely focus on the construction of a fantastic website that potential clients open and say,

  • “Wow, what a great website”.
  • “That was easy to use”.
  • “I’d recommend this website to a friend”.

I also stay away from running ads as I see it as a conflict of interest. I instead recommend an ad agency or that they source someone else. Ads and websites consist of two different concerns. I would prefer to use an ad agency that solely focuses on well researched ad campaigns and a software company that creates premium grade websites. Two separate concerns, two separate companies, and no conflict of interest.

So if you got to the end of my blog post dearest reader and you run a company, I ask you to question yourself before you run another ad, is my website actually decent?