My Facebook ad bombed hard during a live event at a coffee shop in Austin last month

I was running a targeted campaign from a local cafe during SXSW and my click-through rate dropped to 0.2% because the wifi kept kicking me off the platform. Turns out I spent 4 hours targeting the wrong audience segment since the pixel wasn't loading right on my laptop. Has anyone else had their whole strategy derailed by bad internet at a popup or event venue?

3 comments

3 Comments

rubyschmidt2mo ago

Brought my laptop to a cafe with "free wifi" once and ended up hotspotting my phone for three hours straight.

thea8572mo ago

Kinda makes you wonder if "free wifi" is just a myth we keep chasing @rubyschmidt, like the idea that public internet actually works when you need it. I've noticed this pattern everywhere now - the wifi sign is just there to get you in the door, but the connection's always too slow or demands a login that loops forever. It's like we're all supposed to pretend it's fine while we secretly rely on our data plans to get anything done.

craig.sage1mo ago

Right there with you @thea857, I used to think cafe wifi was basically good enough for most things but that whole experience totally flipped my perspective. Now I just assume the connection will fail and plan around it.