Too risky unless you are rich.

not sure if you are being serious or sarcastic, but ads are pretty much essential, especially in this extremely competitive attention span of a market

I'm being serious. The competitive nature that you mention proves the point. Don't compete.

Are you a local coffee shop or clothing designer? Why would you be advertising on Facebook when you should be partnering with a local news site or city/town interest site, or going to meetups, or sponsoring local events?

Relying on Facebook ads builds artificial demand, subjects you to extreme competition, and ultimately either you have to spend too much to maintain or you eventually lose customers because the only reason they were interested in your product was the ads in the first place. Live by the ad, die by the ad.

> you should be partnering with a local news site or city/town interest site, or going to meetups, or sponsoring local events?

All of that is advertising.

I was replying to this:

> If your “brand” is one of these then you should be learning that you need to actually make a good product at a good price that doesn’t rely on advertising to succeed in your marketplace.

Maybe I misinterpreted the meaning.

Yea I was talking about advertising via Facebook and social media but obviosuly see how that could be misread. cheers