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Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

nytimes.com

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Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#61

Post by biot »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #36
stvswn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where to start? What makes you think that they reduced their spend by 99%? They simply limited their campaigns' targeting to a whitelist of 400 sites, there's not any indication that they were spending equal $ per placement. I'm not sure why you believe that aggregating statistics is some sort of lie -- in AdWords, advertisers are able to easily see the placement for each one of their clicks. It's not some big secret…

From the article: > Of the 400,000 web addresses JPMorgan’s ads showed up on in a recent 30-day period, said Ms. Lemkau, only 12,000, or 3 percent, led to activity beyond an impression. An intern then manually clicked on each of those addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on. About 7,000 of them were not, winnowing the group to 5,000. They're pretty plainly saying that 388,00…

When a major sports apparel company sponsors a famous athlete to wear their gear on televised events, they are getting no activity beyond an impression. Doesn't mean the sporting event is trash. It's up to the advertiser to determine whether or not those impressions have value.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#62

Post by elorant »

So if advertising on questionable sites bares the same results as advertising on respectable ones the bottom line is that advertising doesn't work at all.

Perhaps it's time to move away from profiling and return to the old days where the ads were correlated with the content/web site.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#63

Post by adrianN »

wingerlang wrote: post #48
iamjeff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, success of this entire pivot relied largely on this intern's audit report. I imagine that the intern had a massive list of 12,000 URLs and would click through them, taking care to note why the site passes muster or otherwise so that management can add a layer of justification to the final decision. Even at an average of 3 minutes per URL, that still amounts to >600 hours of repetitive and sometimes traumatising…

3 minute per URL seem like a whole lot, it seems more likely that 7k of them were trash and were removed within seconds. A simple automated script/iframe with a "tinder" like interface of yes/no/maybe seems like the way to go here. Spend seconds on most, then minutes on the maybes.

You have a pretty optimistic opinion of the kinds of automation an intern gets.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#64

Post by makomk »

stvswn wrote: post #40
doctorpangloss wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Of the 400,000 web addresses JPMorgan’s ads showed up on in a recent 30-day period, said Ms. Lemkau, only 12,000, or 3 percent, led to activity beyond an impression. An intern then manually clicked on each of those addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on. About 7,000 of them were not, winnowing the group to 5,000. They're pretty plainly saying that 388,00…

1-5% click through rate on a display ad is pretty normal. If had impressions on 400k sites, the distribution of impressions per site had a long tail, and then you removed all of those that had no clicks, you'd expect to have a small set of placements with clicks. It doesn't mean they're spam sites, it's just math.

Yeah. It feels like the New York Times is lying with statistics and fearmongering about "toxic sites" to encourage companies to only advertise with big sites - something that, as basically the biggest name in news in the US, they're positioned to benefit from financially.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#65

Post by almostarockstar »

adrianN wrote: post #63
wingerlang wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 minute per URL seem like a whole lot, it seems more likely that 7k of them were trash and were removed within seconds. A simple automated script/iframe with a "tinder" like interface of yes/no/maybe seems like the way to go here. Spend seconds on most, then minutes on the maybes.

You have a pretty optimistic opinion of the kinds of automation an intern gets.

Good point. Perhaps if you gave the job to a CS major, or an engineer they'd invest the time in making a time saving interface. But an intern in Chase? I doubt they would have the skills or the knowledge to do that.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#66

Post by rtpg »

mozumder wrote: post #15
blazar wrote: post #8

"An intern then manually clicked on each of [the 12000] addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on." - true hero of this article

For better results, have that intern gather the email addresses of those 12,000 pre-approved sites, and email them a personal ad placement buy offer, or request a media kit. You'll find all sorts of personalization opportunities and you get to cut out the middle-man.

and now have 12000 billing portals to manage? 12000 different sites to update every time you update your ads?

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#67

Post by TeMPOraL »

iamjeff wrote: post #44
blazar wrote: post #8

"An intern then manually clicked on each of [the 12000] addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on." - true hero of this article

Yeah, success of this entire pivot relied largely on this intern's audit report. I imagine that the intern had a massive list of 12,000 URLs and would click through them, taking care to note why the site passes muster or otherwise so that management can add a layer of justification to the final decision. Even at an average of 3 minutes per URL, that still amounts to >600 hours of repetitive and sometimes traumatising…

You're assuming the intern actually did the job - that he didn't e.g. get bored a third of the way and finished the rest by dragging down the "No" field through the rest of the column in in Excel, and then changing a bunch of random URLs to "Yes".

My experience is that most people assigned with boring, repetitive jobs will either automate some of it or start cutting corners to avoid the work.

(In fact I'm starting to believe that the first runaway evil AI trying to take over the world will get stopped in its tracks, because it will not understand just how different the "on-paper" states of inventory and books in small and medium businesses are from reality.)

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#68

Post by user5994461 »

pilif wrote: post #25
xbmcuser wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time good content providers will be paid more. So overall it is a good thing for the web. Content farming won't be worth much either.

I'm not so sure, but I would love to be proven wrong. The issue I'm seeing is that there are many orders or magnitude more potential content providers out there than people are willing to manually validate and white-list. This might lead us to a situation where only the largest content providers/creators still get access to ad money which in turn will make it impossible for creators targeting a more niche audience to…

Niche creators never had a chance in the first place. The few pennies you get for thousands of impression don't cover the expenses to run the site or the time to write the content.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#69

Post by Melk »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #49
doctorpangloss wrote: post #23

It's crazy how many apologists there are for Big Web Advertising! So many commenters are giving the customer a hard time for realizing, "99% of my budget is spent on zero value, i.e. fraud." The biggest lie the online advertising industry has sold is aggregate statistics. Of course a handful of traffic sources convert massively while the supermajority (99%) don't convert at all. Advertising intermediaries rely on the…

I agree completely with your assessment. I run a website called HeyAmIFat.com where you can send in a picture of yourself and we'll tell you if you look fat or not in minutes. I often look at the huge companies advertising on my site and think "if they could see where their ads are being placed right now they'd probably realize they're wasting their money" On the other hand this huge "fraud" is what makes Google free…

I agree with icebraining that it's not necessarily dumb for a business to advertise on less known or even irrelevant websites. It's the same difference between an ad flashing on a video wall on Time Square, or a billboard along a busy highway, or a poster hanging in a mall. Each has a different reach and purpose and with that comes a different price.

Google gives you the choice where you want your ads to be displayed; whether it's within the Google search results, or on websites like yours, or there are programs like Google Doubleclick where you can chose which websites you want to display your ads.

I think most of the criticism here doesn't so much reflect the ignorance of advertisers like the parent comment says, but ignorance of the people commenting how advertising works.

Re: Chase had ads on 400k sites, then on just 5k, with same results

#70

Post by Trundle »

danjc wrote: post #43
dkuebric wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to tell from the article, but I don't think there was any change in Chase's advertising spend. My interpretation is that they are spending the same amount, but restricting bidding to a whitelist of sites. If so, the fact that they don't see an impact in # of impressions means more about the ad exchange's bidding system and inelastic demand (or lack thereof) for inventory on those whitelisted sites. I don't…

Also entirely possible that the balance of the 400k websites account for a miniscule percentage of impressions.

Yep, as far as I'm concerned this article is a non-event without data showing this isn't what happened. "Business slightly tweaks marketing expenses" just isn't as attractive and rant inducing.
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