Okay, I've gotten rid of those...uhm, low-quality? LOL... Temu ads, and I feel better already!
The control in our advertising dashboard works exactly the opposite of the way you'd think it would act. Google's help doc was no help at all, so I watched some YT videos from other admins to figure it out. I think that the GOOG isn't especially interested in making this easy, but they need to at least go through the motions.
Their official documentation is also full of endless cautions about too many restrictions on your ads driving down your potential revenue, which as I noted earlier, I've definitely seen...but I'm also not convinced that Google's thumb isn't on the scales. "We TOLD you not to block any ads or it'd cost you, so guess what? We're making sure that it costs you."
Hence my search for other advertising approaches.
Someone upthread, or maybe on a similar thread, mentioned direct ad sales. I've done online ad sales before, and that's a hard no. LOL It's not JUST because that's one of the most soul-sucking enterprises that humans have yet devised, and I'm not interested in doing it again -- which it absolutely is, and I'm not -- but also because people in the ukulele business don't do traditional advertising. Yeah, a few ad pages in Ukulele Magazine and the like, for sure, but otherwise, it's all
marketing. Social media, sponsorships of artists and festivals, newsletters, YouTube channels, and other direct outreach...but nothing like large scale web advertising. Guitar Center and eBay do a few sponsored Google Shopping placements for ukuleles, but try as I might, I've never been able to get any of those here through AdSense, because even those folks don't do much with actual
advertising. They're just elevating their results on Google
searches.
At least in my previous field of endeavor, there were active advertisers. People like Adobe, Sony, Panasonic, Blackmagic, Apple, HP, Dell, and many manufacturers of video-specific hard-drives, secure file-transfer services, digital cinema cameras, visual effects and editing software, and a wide variety of accessories related to professional film and television production...and it was STILL gruesome to harvest enough dollars to keep a large site with a small team afloat. (Many of the vendors I brought in are still on board at my previous site, CreativeCOW.net if you care to see some specifics.)
Even if I were willing to take on the task again (which, to be specific, I was fourth in line for after three previous sales people quit, and they were all making BANK, on grosses over $2m/yr -- but miserably LOL) it's still just not an option in the world of ukuleles. Global advertising campaigns through dynamic platforms isn't a meaningful part of anyone's promotional portfolio in this neck of the world.
I'm not complaining! Just observing, and sharing the specifics of why we struggle in the ways that we do to subsidize the operations here.
But folks, I'm here to tell you that I feel better about everything in my life without Temu here.
Seriously, will you LOOK at the lustre of my hair? I swear, my teeth are whiter, I've closed my belt another notch, and I'm looking forward to my best night's sleep in months.
Apologies for the length of this, but that's where we're at today.
; and a visit to a firing range in Krakow. Oh UU, you know me so well 
)
