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VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

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Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#331

Post by profeta »

cantlin wrote: post #184

At the Guardian we needed our own video player, because we couldn't rely on a third party platform not to take down something that we published. Editorial independence was important. We implemented our player on top of video.js, and most of the developers who were there at the time still have nightmares about it. We finally got the thing working, looking good, embeddable, reasonably cross-browser. We shipped it. A fe…

keep in mind that the alternative for flash is downloading a script from who knows where and running it on the same scope as the page. for each ad.

it is the exact same thing. No matter if they moved away from flash or not. they still would have full control of your site and be able to do what they want just the same. They only have to copy and paste javascript instead of actionscript.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#332

Post by volatilitish »

AlexandrB wrote: post #318
volatilitish wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that IMHO. They dislike "deceptive" adverts. So for example, if it's an image, saying "download" then Google will block your website. Who knows, maybe in the future they'll start banning websites that advertise gambling or other things they dislike. Now I do think that adverts like that are irritating, and deceptive, but should the website that happens to be using an ad-network, that allowed an advert…

> Now I do think that adverts like that are irritating, and deceptive, but should the website that happens to be using an ad-network, that allowed an advertiser to upload an image that says "download", be blocked so that users cannot access it from Chrome and firefox? Of course not. Why not? At least that would get websites to look at the ads their ad networks are serving up a little more than "not at all". Ultimatel…

So you want to squash the tiny amount of competition there is in the online advertising space?

I think it would be fantastic to have a credible alternative to Google adsense, but there isn't one at the moment.

Technically, a better approach would be for Google to block the advertisement or even the ad network. Blocking the website publisher is just bullying tactics.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#333

Post by timdorr »

How is something like this even economical?

All those servers to keep up with that request rate and all that bandwidth spent. Even as costs go down, I don't see how anyone can break even on this. The tiny fraction of a penny earned on this ad is surely outweighed by the cost to display it.

And also the follow-on costs of increasing bounce rates and less time-on-site. Publishers have to be seeing less value in these kinds of ads that perform this way.

It doesn't make any kind of economical sense!

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#334

Post by roymurdock »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #330
manigandham wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Maciej - maybe this will go better than our twitter exchange a few months back. This is a much longer discussion than fit for HN but digital advertising is doing better in pretty much every metric: There's more time spent with ads, deeper engagements, more conversions/ROI and better formats than ever before. Take a look at any of the big apps and platforms that have billions of interactions that happen every day…

> Since the advertising model isn't going to go away There are plenty of people who would like it to, and personally I hope they win. With sufficiently widespread and robust use of adblocking technology, perhaps advertising will become sufficiently unworkable to go away entirely.

Ads will never disappear entirely, because at a basic level, they are really just packets of information. Some are more obnoxious, targeted, and/or dangerous than others, but seeing as how the internet was created to facilitate the distribution and dissemination of information, selfish ads will always find a way to latch into and ride along on more useful and/or altruistic information.

I'd rather live in a world where billboards/TV commercials serve as clearly delineated frames for ads to exist in, rather than the world we are moving towards, where essays and "news" articles hide behind a facade of objectivity while subtly promoting some sponsor's content.

But submarines/native content is the logical end of all freely-published syndicated content on the web, given the arms race between ad blockers and ad networks. What could be more user-friendly than an ad disguised as an article?

Time to start paying for good content - the free ride for us common consumers is over.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#335

Post by alkonaut »

pjc50 wrote: post #21
captainmuon wrote: post #2

I'm a bit shocked about the state of advertising. When I was making websites (~early 2000s), there were a lot more options to choose from, it seems. Now you basically just have Google and this opaque network of algorithmic auctions. Back then, you had a bunch of small business ad networks that you could choose from. I found you could also choose more different formats. OK, there was no video (thank God), but you coul…

One alternative to the current situation would be for sites to serve their own ads (from their own servers). I wonder why this isn't done at least from big sites? There's no way to prove that you've served a particular number of ads to real humans. That's why all these ridiculous brokers and third-party fragments of javascript exist: it would otherwise be trivial for the publisher to defraud the advertiser.

That's still The condition for me to view ads: no third party servers, no third party JS.

This means no tracking, which in turn means the advertiser has to trust the publisher completely.

This is entirely possible - it's however not going to work through an opaque network of auctions. The publisher will have to sell the advertising space to advertisers themselves, just like print and TV, and trust the impression statistics, just like print and TV. Advertisers can't just drop $10k at the doorstep of some as network and sit back and expect statistics. They will have to drop more money, and spend even more on the surveys they have to perform to figure out whether their advertising is working.

This would be the death of the "online ad industry" as we know it, and also the death of large parts of the web as we know it. I'm not sure it's a bad thing.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#336

Post by benplumley »

idlewords wrote: post #316
manigandham wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adblockers are just software and there are already dozens of ways to work around this. It's not the end of the world but a new paradigm that requires more work than before. Part of the benefit is that it's a reset in the industry that should get rid of some of the bad vendors and help improve the experience by showing advertisers that consumers do care about UX and choice. Advertising will always be around though. No…

How is digital advertising 'better than ever' when everyone seems to agree that the situation is untenable? I admire your optimism that putting consumers and advertisers in a directly adversarial relationship (by forcing them into an arms race around blocking) will somehow make everything great, but I have a hard time sharing it.

Advertising is doing 'better than ever' because for every x% increase in adblocking users, the adverts seen by the remaining people become more than x% more predatory. You can tell that a market is healthy and sustainable by looking at its bottom line.

See also: Cable TV.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#337

Post by manigandham »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #330
manigandham wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Maciej - maybe this will go better than our twitter exchange a few months back. This is a much longer discussion than fit for HN but digital advertising is doing better in pretty much every metric: There's more time spent with ads, deeper engagements, more conversions/ROI and better formats than ever before. Take a look at any of the big apps and platforms that have billions of interactions that happen every day…

> Since the advertising model isn't going to go away There are plenty of people who would like it to, and personally I hope they win. With sufficiently widespread and robust use of adblocking technology, perhaps advertising will become sufficiently unworkable to go away entirely.

You've said the same thing several times in all the advertising related threads. While I understand some of the sentiment, let me be as blunt as possible: Advertising will never go away.

The fundamental model of advertising giving free access to content is great and works for pretty much everyone. It's fast, simple, egalitarian, requires no commitment and is very scalable.

Adblocking tech will never cover 100% of ads, there will always be workarounds and other developments to either serve ads or refuse adblocking users. With all the adblocking growth we've seen so far, it's still a tiny part of the ad market. Whatever we've lost in adblocked impressions has been more than made up for in all the mobile apps and platforms that take up more and more of people's time.

If you really want to pay for content then there are increasingly more options being offered, but this does not need to be mutually exclusive of ads. It's just a different option and more choice is the real solution.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#338

Post by JoshTriplett »

roymurdock wrote: post #334
JoshTriplett wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since the advertising model isn't going to go away There are plenty of people who would like it to, and personally I hope they win. With sufficiently widespread and robust use of adblocking technology, perhaps advertising will become sufficiently unworkable to go away entirely.

Ads will never disappear entirely, because at a basic level, they are really just packets of information. Some are more obnoxious, targeted, and/or dangerous than others, but seeing as how the internet was created to facilitate the distribution and dissemination of information, selfish ads will always find a way to latch into and ride along on more useful and/or altruistic information. I'd rather live in a world wher…

> What could be more user-friendly than an ad disguised as an article?

An actual article. It's not an "ad" or "submarine content" if it's a legitimate product review or similar.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#339

Post by lopatin »

thirdsun wrote: post #208
cantlin wrote: post #184

At the Guardian we needed our own video player, because we couldn't rely on a third party platform not to take down something that we published. Editorial independence was important. We implemented our player on top of video.js, and most of the developers who were there at the time still have nightmares about it. We finally got the thing working, looking good, embeddable, reasonably cross-browser. We shipped it. A fe…

Thanks for your insight. Maybe I'm naive but how are these ads of any value to the advertiser? - nobody wants them, everybody ignores them. How can ads that surely almost exclusively receive accidental clicks be so worthwhile for publishers like you?

Do these ads really seem like they would perform worse than typical banner ads? You're right that accidental clicks may happen more often, but you don't pay per click. You said that "nobody wants them, everybody ignores them", which can be said about any kind of display advertising if you don't like advertising. At the end of the day, an ad campaign can be a smash hit with click-through as low as 1%, or even lower depending on what you're selling.

Re: VPAID ads destroy performance and are still served by major ad networks

#340

Post by manigandham »

archon810 wrote: post #93
Hondor wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only "almost all"? Why not use the few that don't? Is it because your revenue from them will be lower? Maybe it's lower because they aren't forcing these profitable ads at your users. That really does sound like the publisher's fault for choosing the most profitable ad network and neglecting the user's experience. Any "good quality" ad network is bound to pay less, otherwise they'd all be doing it.

I'm actually not aware of any except for maybe http://decknetwork.net , which is very selective in accepting publishers and only serves certain verticals. And yeah, if the revenue from some other obscure network is 10% of AdSense, and a good business becomes not viable, it's not good for anyone.

There are a few, we're one of them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11902556
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