Vent: Lost $4k on a retargeting tool that promised the moon

Honestly, we dropped $4,000 on a retargeting platform last quarter based on a slick demo and huge promises. Ngl, the reporting was so confusing we couldn't tell if it actually worked. After three months of tweaking, we saw zero lift in conversions compared to just using basic Google Ads. Tbh, the onboarding was a mess too - took two weeks just to get our pixel firing right. I should've stuck with what we knew instead of chasing shiny software. Has anyone else gotten burned by an agency tool that looked great in the sales call but flopped in real use?

2 comments

2 Comments

michaeladams2d ago

Read a study last month that said most retargeting tools show fake attribution, basically claiming credit for sales that were gonna happen anyway. Sounds like you got the same smoke and mirrors these guys love to sell.

emma_young1d ago

Hang on wait, they show fake attribution? Like they literally just count people who were already going to buy and say "look we did that"? That's wild to me because I've seen these tools brag about 300% ROAS or whatever and it always seemed too good to be true. I remember a client I worked with briefly said their retargeting campaign was killing it but when we turned it off for a week, sales barely dropped. You're telling me that's actually the norm and not just a one-off glitch?