General Motors, in a widely reported Facebook-IPO-week #Fail bail, has quit their social media agency of record and abandoned Facebook Ads. We understand the former, but not the latter. The most common reason for Facebook Ads failure, or in any channel for that matter, is a serious misunderstanding of the channel.

Hey there Mr. and Ms. online marketer. What would YOU do with about 24 billion paid Facebook Ads impressions, served to the largest sampling of humans on earth with the end goal of selling GM cars? Would you target social ads broadly, run promotions, attempt to drive users to external landing pages for one-touch car-building conversions, gradually raise up a new generation of brand-friendly customers and/or socialize users for later marketing efforts? How tightly would you segment users? Would the campaigns be part of a deeper, multichannel and long term strategy? Would you expect to sell cars after one, two or three direct response FB Ads touches? Would the 10 million bucks be worth spending compared to less quantifiable buys like television ads, radio or print brochures? Would you track results holistically, shooting at appropriate KPIs after setting realistic expectations? Well, if you’re General Motors, apparently the answer is none-of-the-above… no, no, no, no, and no (at least not anymore)!