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What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

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Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#331

Post by jefftk »

viraptor wrote: post #222
MichaelBurjack wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers have many tools to measure "ghost ads" aka "people who haven't seen an ad but would otherwise have qualified for all your target criteria". See https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2620078 as an example.

That's of course possible to measure in theory. I meant it as a response to "Facebook, Google and others make these tests possible in their platforms" since I haven't seen it exposed as an explicit option on either.

You can run this yourself without any help from them: show one group ads for your site, and show another group white rectangles. Compare performance.

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#332

Post by jefftk »

mobjack wrote: post #271
kposehn wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. One tool with FB lift tests is to make a lookalike audience. FB will then split that audience in two for you so you have a test and control group. The original test required two ad accounts and keeping your overall advertising static (not changing anything) for the duration. Today it is much easier and has a lot more features. Google does a search lift test with YouTube as well. You can run a large set of…

FB can track ads using clicks and view through. With a control group, you can only use view through. I am just skeptical of how it is a fair test especially when FB has an interest to prove that ads work. YouTube brand lift is an indirect measure that is hard to translate to actual sales to see if the ads were cost effective. The math is fuzzy when measuring marketing ads and it is real hard to be truly scientific.

The proper test is to use viewthrough for both the experiment and control

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#333

Post by jefftk »

onion2k wrote: post #316
josephjrobison wrote: post #170

A very easy way to break this argument is to not look at huge known companies like eBay and Amazon, but brand new companies 1-2 years old that have grown almost entirely by online ads. Eventually word of mouth kicks in, but there are plenty of smart operators that built their entire brand and revenue off of ads. Works best in online direct to consumer brands.

...there are plenty of smart operators that built their entire brand and revenue off of ads. Can you name one? I find it very hard to believe there are any companies that have scaled up only using online adverts. Why would the founders of a business do that when they can grow in their local market by talking to people as well as buying online ads for wider reach?

Here's one I worked on when I was at CogoLabs: https://venturefizz.com/deals/autotegrity-acquired-adp

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#334

Post by k_bx »

pjc50 wrote: post #325
mlang23 wrote: post #315

What I notice is that internet advertisment is pretty selective, I dont know about effective... If your interests happen to diverge from mainstream just that bit enough, you can end up in a pretty much ad-free zone. I happen to watch a lot of conference recordings on YouTube, and most conferences dont monetize their channel (yet). But thats not the end of the story. Stay away from mainstream, and you get complete ad-…

So, how is Rogan funded? And what is he advertising? His Patreon? Product placement? Ideological placement?

Only a portion of his shows gets demonetized, far from all

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#335

Post by alvah »

pjc50 wrote: post #325
mlang23 wrote: post #315

What I notice is that internet advertisment is pretty selective, I dont know about effective... If your interests happen to diverge from mainstream just that bit enough, you can end up in a pretty much ad-free zone. I happen to watch a lot of conference recordings on YouTube, and most conferences dont monetize their channel (yet). But thats not the end of the story. Stay away from mainstream, and you get complete ad-…

So, how is Rogan funded? And what is he advertising? His Patreon? Product placement? Ideological placement?

There are over 5 minutes of ads at the start of every Joe Rogan podcast, as well as others throughout. One analyst suggests Rogan has acheived a net worth over $1bn based on the number of downloads & estimated advertising revenue based on those figures: http://www.insideradio.com/podcastnewsdaily/joe-rogan-podcas...

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#336

Post by jefftk »

belorn wrote: post #317
rhlsthrm wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how would we be able to browse for free?

The free internet can be split into two groups, websites operated for non-commercial reasons and websites operated for commercial reasons. The group that operate under commercial reasons can also be split into two groups, those whose primary revenue is from advertisement and those whose primary revenue is from non-advertisement sources. Hacker news for example belong to the later and gain revenue from investing. To a…

HN has ads: startups advertising for employees. But I don't know how YC thinks of the effect of HN.

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#337

Post by Iv »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #311
Iv wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because advertising is a huge deal for the health of the internet, despite its vilification [citation needed] I am of the opinion that internet would be a much saner place if advertisement was purely and simply banned.

Then how would we be able to browse for free?

I am not able to browse for free. Right now it costs me around $35 a month for access.

I'd gladly add a few dollars to have an ad-free web and I bet many people would as well.

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#338

Post by jefftk »

FussyZeus wrote: post #241
seem_2211 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between performance and brand marketing. Bart advertising by Twitter/ Facebook is mostly brand marketing (not really tied to anything). A lot of marketing is about reminding you that a company exists.

Despite concentrated effort, I have yet to be able to forget that Facebook exists. Brand awareness marketing for companies as ubiquitous as that seems like lighting money on fire for the sake of it.

Brand advertising doesn't have to be "did you know that Company exists"; it can be "you should like Company more because Reason"

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#339

Post by jagged-chisel »

braindeath wrote: post #173
jagged-chisel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... advertisers ... can't possibly care what video it's showing ... I read this as 'advertisers don't care about the particular topic of the ad in general.' They don't care if you're watching a DIY home fixit video, or a coder streaming his working session, as long as you're a target for diapers and they're advertising diapers.

And it sounds like the person you’re responding to is countering this very premise. “They don't want their ad dollars to be spent paying publishers for content that's controversial because it makes them look bad.”

They care insofar as political controversy is concerned. Topically, they are not concerned. This is the distinction I feel does exist.

Re: What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising?

#340

Post by austincheney »

sifar wrote: post #285
austincheney wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't they spend a bigger part of their revenue on ads ? That isn't the best question. Businesses spend stupid money on advertising in the mere hope and faith of grabbing attention. Sites like Google (the actual search engine) are really good at measuring effectiveness because their entire revenue model is built on micro-auctions measured by engagement. The better question is: If digital advertising were so effe…

This is the best articulation I have read explaining the phenomenon. Thank you. Can I steal this ? If only business leaders can wrap their head around recursive feedback and have the courage to account for it.

> Can I steal this ?

Absolutely.

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