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P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

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Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#201

Post by colbyh »

usrusr wrote: post #109
prostoalex wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also raises a question about conversion being a lagging indicator here. It's possible after a few more months of lower spend they will start to see consumers pulling back. Why would online lag be different from other media? It's unlikely consumers drop everything and stock up on Downy Fabric Softener after viewing the ad on TV or hearing a cheerful radio/podcast commercial.

The point is that old mass media ads are pretty much accepted as a bottomless pit with unclear outcome and that there is a whole industry specialising in independent result assessment. Online ads promise perfect monitoring, but that is not only provided mostly by the advertisement channel provider itself (quite the opposite of independent) but also only useful for ads that aim for immediate reaction ("buy now!"), it…

Bingo. No one rushes to the store to get Downy because of a Facebook ad, but they might start buying something else a few months later if another brand has been consistently hitting them with ads.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#202

Post by colbyh »

dp-tyvek wrote: post #29
ekianjo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well also nobody cares so much about digital marketing when it comes to buyIng stuff that is pretty much commodity.

In my (anecdotal) experience a lot of people just go for the familiar brands when buying commodity products. Surely creating brand awareness must have some kind of effect.

yeah that's why I said at that scale, for this suite of brands, all marketing is brand (i.e. brand awareness) marketing.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#203

Post by colbyh »

disc wrote: post #6
colbyh wrote: post #2

A couple of things going on at once - it's hard for old guard companies to compete in digital marketing because consumers are being trained to buy based on reviews, price, and delivery times more than brand. And when you're spending $100M/quarter over a dozen brands all digital marketing is going to be brand marketing. It also raises a question about conversion being a lagging indicator here. It's possible after a fe…

Perhaps it's possible that digital marketing is not all that effective for commodity items? I admit to having brand preferences for laundry detergent and garbage bags, though I like to believe (perhaps wishfully) they are a result of first-hand and family experiences.

at this scale their digital marketing is not your traditional performance marketing. traditional performance marketing would absolutely be worthless to a brand this big, but large ad buys ensure they stay top of mind for consumers in a (commodities) space where competition is more numerous than it is deep.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#204

Post by jacobush »

zippergz wrote: post #194
tomrod wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is an open question of incrementality -- did you just cannibalize a sale from a different, possibly cheaper, channel? How much lift did you actually get? That's the problem I've seen in the digital ad space -- lift is either hard to measure, or ignored completely. Causality to the sale is assumed on the ad.

I think that's a great point, and definitely hard for a huge company like P&G. But for a small company, it can be easier, because when your volumes are low enough, it's often very easy to directly see sales uplift in your top line numbers when you run the ad. If I normally get 20 orders a day, I run an ad and get 40, then the ad budget runs out and I'm back to a steady 20, I'm not too worried about cannibalization.

For a huge company it's even harder. I think the internet ads serve partly the same as news paper ads. There is no click through for them either. Actual paper ones.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#205

Post by tzs »

jshelly wrote: post #167

In my own personal experience, I can honestly say I've never "intentionally" clicked on an ad in the past 20+ years I've been on the internet. I will say I've certainly looked at ads in magazines, billboards, tv commercials (before tivo) and even those small planes pulling banners at the beach. I am not surprised that digital marketing is not that effective. What does surprise me is why its taken this long to figure…

I've had several ads I would have clicked on them, but I didn't get to them in time. Typical scenario: I'm reading a story at fanfiction.net. I get to the bottom of the page, and click the button to go to the next page...and then I see that the ad on the bottom of the page is for something I'm interested in and I want to click, but it is too late.

If I go back, either by the browser back button or by the button on the next page to go to the previous chapter, it usually does not show the same ad.

(It also appears that the ad it does show then is not random. There is one particular ad that I've seen a lot when I get to a page via the back button. I wonder if it is possible to specifically target pages reached by back buttons?)

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#206

Post by the_duke »

zmk_ wrote: post #200
jshelly wrote: post #167

In my own personal experience, I can honestly say I've never "intentionally" clicked on an ad in the past 20+ years I've been on the internet. I will say I've certainly looked at ads in magazines, billboards, tv commercials (before tivo) and even those small planes pulling banners at the beach. I am not surprised that digital marketing is not that effective. What does surprise me is why its taken this long to figure…

Long time ago I used some free $ on adwords to advertise Dropbox. I maxed out the free storage upgrades within a day or two. I am sure I am not the one who did that. People click on ads. Plus ads are not always meant to lead to sales. For companies like P&G who sell products with many substitutes it's also about maintaining brand awareness.

I took a different route.

I spent a few hours coding up a script that would launch a VM and create a new account with a catch all email, then confirm the email.

Worked well also.

Your approach was much less work, though. ^^

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#207

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Honestly, I'm waiting for the internet advertising apocalypse wherein retailers cut digital ad spending because ROI is too low - and only advertise on Facebook or other sites with super targeting.

That would effectively kill a good chunk of internet services.

[1] https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/marketer...

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#208

Post by tzs »

reitanqild wrote: post #173
jshelly wrote: post #167

In my own personal experience, I can honestly say I've never "intentionally" clicked on an ad in the past 20+ years I've been on the internet. I will say I've certainly looked at ads in magazines, billboards, tv commercials (before tivo) and even those small planes pulling banners at the beach. I am not surprised that digital marketing is not that effective. What does surprise me is why its taken this long to figure…

Given the amount of stupid ads I see I sometimes click one when I see something that is remotely interesting (dev tools etc), hoping to train googles AS (Artificial Stupidity) to serve me more relevant ads. (No, I'm still happily married and I cannot figure out why a company that sits on my personal email and most of my internet searches for the last 15 years cannot figure that out. Especially as I have even configur…

I can't figure out why Zillow thinks I'd be interested in houses in Palo Alto. They regular send me emails about houses they think I might be interested in, and they are in the Palo Alto area.

The only reason they have my email address was because I made an account so I could claim my house on Zillow, so they know exactly where I live, and that is 850 miles from Palo Alto.

Re: P&G Cuts More Than $100M in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads

#210

Post by pbiggar »

zippergz wrote: post #189
jshelly wrote: post #167

In my own personal experience, I can honestly say I've never "intentionally" clicked on an ad in the past 20+ years I've been on the internet. I will say I've certainly looked at ads in magazines, billboards, tv commercials (before tivo) and even those small planes pulling banners at the beach. I am not surprised that digital marketing is not that effective. What does surprise me is why its taken this long to figure…

I almost feel like there are two factions. I'm pretty similar to you. I have clicked on ads a handful of times, but it's very rare. However, I have worked in jobs where I had visibility into the metrics, and I have seen internet ads be EXTREMELY effective. Not in terms of clicks (which could easily be accidental or fraudulent), but in terms of people clicking and then purchasing. People aren't going to "accidentally"…

Not only are there definitely people who click ads, but there are people _like us_ who click ads.

All the dev tool companies run ads! CircleCI runs them, but the dozen or so other dev tool companies where I know the founders or early hires also run ads. You would think given comments like this on HN that they would be useless, but we all run the numbers. The numbers say that not only are they effective, but that usually we should run more of them.

It's like when people here say "oh I hate talking to salespeople". Yet, salespeople make the world go around.

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