Ad Fraud on LinkedIn • Hacker News Board

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#141

Post by qppo » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

radicaldreamer wrote: post #129

kzrdude wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like pay-per-click and similar models should just be discontinued, they don't work since they can be exploited. An independently verifiable metric needs to be used (if the price for the ad should be traffic or interaction based) - or something completely different. Fixed prices?

There's a large circular economy with ad buyers, marketing/PR firms, ad-tech, and ad networks going on where a large amount of fraud is overlooked/ignored because everyone's jobs and ad budgets depend on ignoring it.

Sounds a bit like the "systemic failures" that brought down the housing market in 2008.

It's always been a surprise to me how much money is flowing from ads and how any business can be so reliant on it, since this makes it sound like it's fundamentally flawed. One would think the jig would eventually be up.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#142

Post by rtx » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

gknight wrote: post #133

soared wrote: post #90

A sample size of of 2,000 impressions is absolutely useless. Even the larger example is completely useless. I don’t even considering analyzing a campaign with less than 50k impressions, and I won’t look at a variable if it’s under 10k. Realistically I want a few hundred thousand impressions before trying to make big claims about fraud.

I hear you, but often times in B2B advertising, your target audiences are going to be small. How would you suggest assessing the success/failure of your ad campaigns if it's an order of magnitude less than your 50k threshold?

Let's not start with the assumption that we can reach c-suite at large companies in 25 dollars per lead.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#143

Post by dylan604 » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #58

marcinzm wrote: post #5

Hard to know how much is ad fraud and how much is people just not being interested in what is being advertised. Don't see why I should care about yet another webinar especially if I'm already a successful CEO and get five thousand webinar requests a day. Might click for more info but then after 10 seconds on the page (and seeing it's more BS) I'll probably bail. Same as this quote: >“You’ll see the call to action is…

For some reason or other LinkedIn keeps thinking I must be very interested in Shell and Raytheon, though that couldn't be farther off the mark. Having selected "I find this ad annoying or not interesting" numerous times without any effect. What is this algorithm behind that thinking? Certainly not a good way to get some ad revenue from me (tbh I'm a lost cause anyway in that regard.. can count the no. of ad clicks I…

Let's face it Shell and Raytheon have much much larger ad buying budget than probably any/all of your actual interests combined. If Shell/Raytheon/types target the same audience as smaller vendors with smaller ad buys, then they will always lose the auction. If someone has a $500/month budget, they will lose to someone with a $5000 budget. This is why I think these "targeted" ad pushers are the actual fraud.

Other mediums of advertising sell you a specific ad on a certain page of a website/newspaper/magazine/etc. You have no idea how many people really look at it. You make your decision on if the site/paper/zine attracts the crowd you are interested in. Buying TV/Radio ads also says for your ad buy you will get X number of ads in certain time spots, or for more money you can have your ad played during specific times during specific shows. Again, you have no idea on the exact number of people seeing/hearing your ad, but at least you know it's getting played.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#144

Post by rtx » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

jd115 wrote: post #107

The biggest mystery for me is why so many people believe so strongly in Facebook Ads. I have never gotten ANYTHING other than bot traffic from FB, or anything above 0% conversion, after repeatedly (mis-)spending thousands on FB ads. I must really be going all backwards about it, or something. (P.S. this is for content that otherwise gets a very healthy conversion rate from organic traffic)

Is it just content or product. I have seen great results for cheap consumer products.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#145

Post by ballenf » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #58

marcinzm wrote: post #5

Hard to know how much is ad fraud and how much is people just not being interested in what is being advertised. Don't see why I should care about yet another webinar especially if I'm already a successful CEO and get five thousand webinar requests a day. Might click for more info but then after 10 seconds on the page (and seeing it's more BS) I'll probably bail. Same as this quote: >“You’ll see the call to action is…

For some reason or other LinkedIn keeps thinking I must be very interested in Shell and Raytheon, though that couldn't be farther off the mark. Having selected "I find this ad annoying or not interesting" numerous times without any effect. What is this algorithm behind that thinking? Certainly not a good way to get some ad revenue from me (tbh I'm a lost cause anyway in that regard.. can count the no. of ad clicks I…

Maybe their ad targeting criteria is "people who don't want to hear about us".

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#146

Post by BrianOnHN » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

derwiki wrote: post #41

motohagiography wrote: post #10

I lost a couple of thousand dollars using their services (literally 5x my ad budget) because they "refill" your ad account based on the ceiling you intend to spend - without an email notification or other notification in your main profile. It cycled through my ~$300 ad budget and charged me that amount multiple times before I caught it on my bill. Never received the refund they said they'd send either. People say tha…

This sort of reason is exactly why I started using one time credit cards (privacy) for new service signups.

+1 for privacy.com

What you lose in credit card points, you 10X in savings on:

1. Unexpected "recurring" charges and

2. Time spent avoiding unintelligible unsubscribe UXs

Plus, I feel a lot more comfortable trying services that require a credit card for a free trial which has led me to some extra value that I wouldn't have found otherwise. Just set the budget on the card to $1.

Some people might feel bad for all the SaaS companies that are getting failed payment alerts, but I don't. It took a lot of dark patterns and group think to create a market for something like privacy.com.

I'm still waiting on my $600 from Dropbox, which they charged over five years for an inactive account without ever sending a receipt. Never again with privacy.com.

Edit: format/clarify

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#147

Post by yters » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

qppo wrote: post #141

radicaldreamer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a large circular economy with ad buyers, marketing/PR firms, ad-tech, and ad networks going on where a large amount of fraud is overlooked/ignored because everyone's jobs and ad budgets depend on ignoring it.

Sounds a bit like the "systemic failures" that brought down the housing market in 2008. It's always been a surprise to me how much money is flowing from ads and how any business can be so reliant on it, since this makes it sound like it's fundamentally flawed. One would think the jig would eventually be up.

The whole thing is propped up with CIA money. I saw an Onion exposé on this.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#148

Post by motohagiography » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #132

motohagiography wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If LI were still a public company, this behaviour would destroy their stock price. There is something to be said for public markets and accountability.

Being that LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, they are a public company.

Except as a product, the company (MSFT) is insulated from their crappy behavior, where if it were a stand alone company, there would be more accountability.

Maybe that's a new platform company strategy: build a bunch of low-volatility/low-margin enterprise products for long term revenue generation, then fund a bunch of shadey operations as products to be pools for off-the-books bonuses and incentives.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#149

Post by rtx » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

wgx wrote: post #139

rtx wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Display network has been like that for atleast 10 years that I have been using it.

Can I ask then, why continue to use it for 10 years?

You can sell crappy products with above 90 percent margin. Though now we primarily use FB.

Re: Ad Fraud on LinkedIn

#150

Post by HEHENE » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

sarora27 wrote: post #120

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the banks offer it online as part of the service?

Not all. A major US Bank (rhymes w/ Pace Bank) used to provide this feature back in the 2000s and then rolled it back. I discovered this ~4 months ago when I wanted to buy something online but didn't fully trust the vendor. Then ended up going with Privacy.com. I'm a huge fan and would def recommend them to anyone looking for better control over subscription charges

CapOne offers that for their credit cards, but it's so clunky and unintuitive that I still wind up using Privacy 90% of the time.