Complaint Review: Funnel Science - Plano TX

Alex Fender, the owner of Funnel Science, promotes himself as an SEM - PPC Expert.  My small brand agency had a client request for paid search services. We naturally wanted to help them but did not have the experience in-house.  We searched online and found Alex and his company - Funnel Science.  

I met Alex in his small shop in Plano; there were about 5 people working there, but Alex did all the talking. He presented a presentation to me that highlighted another account that he claimed to work on.  The results he showed looked impressive (high CTR, low cost, tons of leads... too good to be true??).  He then shared a rigid training and certification schedule that he said EVERYONE working there had to complete in order to work on our business; sounds great!  After that presentation, I entered an agreement with them and told my client that we are ready.

Let the CON begin!

Turned out, much of what Alex Fender claimed was not true. For example:

Alex loves to talk around his prospects and clients to basically leave you dizzy with information and feeling stupid if you question it.  He will CONSTANTLY remind you that he is a veteran and this is a "veteran-owned business", implying of course that if you question his methods or approach, then you must not love America or support our veterans!  Seriously... he turns the table on you where you almost felt bad for questioning him or suggesting a different approach (copy, images, targeting, etc.).  When analytics were not reflecting the actual results we were seeing, he would insist that the client is lying or hiding sales AND we were not reading the reports properly. It couldn't possibly be him... he's a veteran!



 

In regard to budgets, Alex Fender and Funnel Science do not know the meaning of the word.  Since they make their money by adding a mark-up percent (25 - 35%) to the media placed and/or cost per campaign, they are singularly focused on using every nickel of your budget ASAP, then leave you forced to ADD to the budget halfway through the month or go dark. This happened multiple times, and since I could not assign the costs back to my client, my agency had to eat it!  There was one month where our agency was forced to eat $13,000 because of Alex Fender's HORRIBLE management of the PPC account.  

Let's talk about training for a second. As mentioned, Alex would claim that he is not an island unto himself and that every member of his "team" was as talented and trained as he claimed to be.  Within two months of working with Funnel Science, that "team" was different... people that I was introduced to were "no longer with the company". The team that was now helping Alex run the program was practically just out of school and had ZERO prior experience managing paid search / PPC programs.  They struggled to answer even the most simple, basic questions about a campaign, its performance, or viability.  

This terrible experience lasted almost a year.  Whenever I tried to speak with Alex and right the ship, he would get defensive and tell me that I just need to have my client "unlock the budget" (meaning have no cap on spending per month), and he would show me and them how successful he would be.... yeah - Right Alex! You just want an open checkbook to milk.

You wouldn't suspect it when you first meet them, but Funnel Science, and Alex Fender, in particular, are the worst kind of people.  They claim to be God-fearing, patriotic Americans that live their lives with honor.  Yet, they use that illusion as cover for overcharging clients, misleading them about results, and outright stealing.  That's why I fired them! 

Since they rely on SEM ads to win business across the nation, not just Texas, I am urging everyone to watch out for these slimeballs.  I have reported them to Google, Bing, and Facebook.  Not sure if they care, but I hope you do!  Internet marketing is filled with fraud and bot clicks, but it's also filled with unethical, dishonest, conniving people that claim to be one thing but is actually just the opposite (sound familiar?).

Don't work with Alex Fender or Funnel Science - you'll be grateful for that decision.