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What the heck happened?

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R. C.:
This question applies to AMS, Facebook ADs, BookBub, and Google Ads. Taboola and WrittenWord seem to function well. (Fingers crossed it doesn’t change.)

We all know that marketing platforms change their tools (algorithms) to suit their needs. Sales are another topic. This query is focused on achieving impressions. For years, I have been able to set up and manage campaigns that generate a lot of impressions. I could present my ADs to thousands of viewers for not much money. 

However, the number of impressions on the platforms has been awful for a few months. In fact, after running for a couple of weeks, then tweaking, and running a couple of more weeks, Google and FB have nearly zero impressions.

I’ve tweaked keywords, CPC, target audience, total budget, geography, technology (desktop versus mobile), AD dimensions, and AD content, but nothing seems to improve the performance.

Does anyone have insight into what happened to cause the dramatic shift in the algorithms for AD presentation?

Thanks in advance.
RC.

TimothyEllis:
Just guessing, but woke influence?

The censorship across social media platforms has been stepped up dramatically this year, and hidden behind terms like 'fact checking' and the like.

If your ad content even slightly deviates from the narrative wanted, it's likely the algorithms are making sure its not seen.

Cynical yes. But just the few posts I've had on Quora deleted by the bots suggests this is getting worse, and people are complaining about it a lot now across platforms.

alhawke:
We've seen the trends of worsening sales and clicks with ads over the last ten years. The question is, where is it all going? I don't think anything's better for trad publishers. But it really makes me wonder why it's so hard to sell now. There's more people in the world, not less. :shrug
I'm not answering your question, R.C., just agreeing with it.

Jeff Tanyard:
I don't know, but I'll add the possibility of internet or site outages resetting algorithms and whatnot.   :shrug

Post-Crisis D:
If the issue is lowered impressions, ad blockers could be playing a role.

I never used to use ad blockers because an ad here and there never bothered me.  But, now, so many sites are just littered with ads.  It's crazy.  I mean, even on sites you'd consider reputable, sometimes they have more ads than actual content.  And that's not to mention the sites that are just set up to generate ad impressions and/or clicks.  Like sites that have a supposed news story or whatever, but then they spread the story one or two sentences at a time over ten or twenty or more pages.  I've learned that game.  I suspect others have as well.  I either ignore such links or have learned how to speed through them to minimize ads loading and all that garbage.

Again, a few ads don't bother me.  I know sites need to make money.  In the past, I've run ads on my own sites.  But, these days, the ad to content ratio is so out of whack on so many sites, it is like screw you, I'm blocking the stupid ads.  And, if I get that, oh, turn off your ad blocker because waaa waaa waaa, then it's like, screw you, I don't need to visit your site anymore.

Granted, I'm just one anecdotal case, but I suspect others do the same: use ad blockers and/or avoid sites that are laden with ads.  Also, lots of times, I just have Javascript turned off because that shuts down a bunch of ads and other garbage too.

So, that could be another reason for fewer ad impressions and, thus, fewer sales.

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