I’m going to ask the dumb question: if you had a newsletter or some online store that you wanted to promote, and you had at least some budget for ads, what actually works in terms of ads?
All anyone talks about is how ads never work, but I know a couple of people who, for example, thrive on Facebook ads. Are they outliers then?
Broadly - conversions that you can validate. It's kind of that simple. Depends on the channel, as well. For LI and FB/IG, have tight targeting, tighter tracking, and really really good creative. As long as I'm making more than I spend, there's something there. Every now and then we turn off our ads for a month or so and analyze traffic and sales to make sure those ads aren't capturing leads that would've come in organically. Advertising is work - you have to constantly investigate and experiment and optimize and refresh. Then do it all over again when that particular well runs dry.
All anyone talks about is how ads never work, but I know a couple of people who, for example, thrive on Facebook ads. Are they outliers then?