This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
All right, all right, Chris Guillebeau back with you. Month-long ad budget gets spent in one day. That's what we're gonna talk about today. That's the story we're gonna hear. And just to be clear, this is not how it's supposed to work.
If you have a budget to spend money on ads for an entire month, ordinarily that would go for, let's say 30 days, perhaps 31 days, maybe 28, perhaps 29. I think those are the only options, right? Well, unfortunately, an error leads to this side hustler, small business owner, spending her entire budget for a month in a single day. And of course, this is part of our Failure Friday series, where we look at things that go wrong. A weekly segment all about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure.
So you get to hear directly from a side hustler who has struggled in some way. And they tell you this story, their idea, their assumption, their plan, and then what happened when that idea, assumption, or plan met reality. Or sometimes it's an external event that just kind of arrives, shows up out of nowhere like an asteroid, I guess. We haven't actually had an asteroid story in Failure Friday. Perhaps that'll come up at some point.
But today you're gonna hear from Donna. She sells kitchenware and decides to experiment with online ads. But yeah, well, it doesn't go as well as she hoped. Let's hear the story from her. I'll come back with a couple of comments at the end.
[Music]
Starting an online store from the ground up was no small feat. But after months of hard work, my kitchenware shop was finally picking up steam. Encouraged by the sales growth, I decided it was time to take things to the next level. With our first major social media ad campaign, the goal was simple. Boost our brand visibility and drive more traffic to our site.
Little did I know, a single typo in the ad setup would turn this initiative into a marketing mishap I'd never forget. Armed with tutorials and advice from e-commerce friends, I set up the campaign with Google. I chose our best-selling bamboo utensil set as a flagship product for the ads, targeting eco-conscious consumers who valued sustainability. The copy was compelling. The images were high quality and the targeting perimeters were set.
I had budgeted $3,000 for the month, a significant sum for my small business, intending to spread it out to test different ad sets and audiences. Or so I thought. The campaign launched on a Friday evening. Satisfied with my day's work, I decided to disconnect for the weekend, a rare break from the constant buzz of running an online store. By the time I logged back in on Monday morning, a sinking feeling set in as I checked the ad dashboard.
The campaign had burned through the entire $3,000 budget. In 24 hours, panic set in as I scrambled through the settings looking for what could have possibly gone wrong. Then I saw a typo in the budget settings. Instead of setting a daily limit of to evenly distribute the budget over the month, I had accidentally set the campaign to spend without limit. The platform then tried to spend a month's budget in a single day and it succeeded.
I guess Google is pretty motivated to get your money. The results were disheartening. Yes, there was a spike in traffic, but the sales did not justify the expense. Not even close. The return on the investment was abysmal.
With only a handful of additional sales, attributed to the campaign. It was a hard lesson learned about the unforgiving nature of automation and the importance of double checking every detail. This marketing mishap taught me several invaluable lessons. First, be careful before you hit that activate button, especially in settings where automation can amplify a small error into a costly mistake. Second, don't just launch ads and walk away.
You need to monitor them, especially in the beginning. Finally, the realization that in digital marketing, budget management is as crucial as the creative aspects of the campaign. In the aftermath, I had to rethink my approach to marketing entirely. I tightened up our processes, set up new campaigns with daily budgets, and made sure to keep looking at the numbers. While the mistake was a setback, it didn't spell the end for my business.
I'm still trying new things every day. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. Big thanks to Donna for sharing the story. If you have a question and update about your side hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions, and be careful with those ad budgets out there. Today's notes, sidehustleschool.com/2652.
New episodes coming out every day, seven days a week, always completely free on every platform, wherever you like to listen. My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
