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Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

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Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#771

Post by Dylan16807 »

throwbacktictac wrote: post #729
Dylan16807 wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People click through search results really fast. "XYZ alternative" would be much more acceptable if it came after the real name, but putting "XYZ" as the very first word is guaranteed to cause confusion.

The result can be split two ways. Either the advertiser wasted money on a click because the consumer will seek out the true XYZ. Or the consumer will be satisfied with what they've clicked and choose to buy it. Hopefully the metrics show that the latter is mostly happening. It's only fraud if the advertiser counterfeits XYZ's brand on their website.

I'm worried about trademark law, not fraud per se, and consumer confusion is the gold standard.

The ad can violate trademarks even if the site behind the ad is squeaky-clean.

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#772

Post by drevil-v2 »

roenxi wrote: post #706
nutanc wrote: post #522

We did a similar kind of experiment some time back and found both FB ads and Google ads were doing jack shit for us. Google was better. FB ads were absolutely useless. So we stopped our ad spend. We observed no change in our customer acquisition. Another way these ad engines extract money out of you is by allowing competitors to bid for your brand name keyword. Try searching for Ozonetel on Google. There will be six…

Prefacing this with an acceptance both that HN culturally has US management principles and that I've got no idea how to run a business... Why is it an initial assumption that customer acquisition and ad spend are linked short or even medium term? That doesn't seem right. When I see an ad for washing machines it doesn't make me run out and buy a washing machine. It gets me familiar with Samsung the brand so in 6-12 mo…

Well then it becomes a question of attribution. How do you with a finite amount of dollars to spend on advertising know if you are getting your money's worth when you cannot connect a dollar spent on ad with incoming revenue?

Sure in broad strokes you are probably right that brand awareness has ROI positive in the long term. But then why would you buy targeted advertising vs a giant billboard on the main road?

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#773

Post by fegu »

yreg wrote: post #756
pjc50 wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and? How on earth are you going to even explain it to the police, let alone find which jurisdiction to use?

You are buying it from some vendor, their company is invoicing you. You can use either your or their jurisdiction, whatever fits better and you can also sue them directly. You explain it like: >For ex, one ad network launched “battery saver” style apps in Google Play, giving them root access to your phone. >When you type the word “Uber” into your Google Play, it auto-fires a click to make it look like you clicked on…

Usually you will have to choose the jurisdiction of the party you want to take to court. This is part of the reason some regulated industries require you to have presence locally.

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#774

Post by diarrhea »

Maro wrote: post #764
diarrhea wrote: post #745

This is now at 700 comments, and no one is talking about the math in the Twitter "thread". Found no mention in the Twitter replies either. Is it just me or is the math hilariously off? [0]: "10% of $150M is $15M". Correct, but do we need a screenshot of a calculator for that, let alone Google? (why do people rely on an internet connection and Google for this?) [1]: Talking about "2/3", but putting in "0.75". So which…

You are right, but also you asked for it by being pedantic: "common" should be "come on" :)

Oh yes, fixed it.

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#776

Post by npx13 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #609
notatoad wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing illegal about referencing somebody else's trademark as long as you're using it to talk about their product. Having a trademark doesn't forbid your competitors from talking about you.

What I think should be made illegal is that Google (and others) is essentially collecting another toll even when users enter in the brand name of the target business in the first place. That is: 1. User types CompanyFoo (whose real URL is www.companyfoo.com) into their address bar, which lands them on Google (because Google owns Chrome and pays billions for the privilege on other browsers). 2. Since Google will sell…

This Google squeez also happens when a company spends on offline ad campaigns as often the first action in response to an ad is to type the company name into the browser. The searcher then arrives at the Google gate where friction is applied to divert a percentage of those to click on competitor online ads. Google is also taxing global offline ad spend.

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#777

Post by ljm »

diarrhea wrote: post #745

This is now at 700 comments, and no one is talking about the math in the Twitter "thread". Found no mention in the Twitter replies either. Is it just me or is the math hilariously off? [0]: "10% of $150M is $15M". Correct, but do we need a screenshot of a calculator for that, let alone Google? (why do people rely on an internet connection and Google for this?) [1]: Talking about "2/3", but putting in "0.75". So which…

As for the calculator screenshot, that kind of stuff feels like a consequence of having 'show your working' drilled into your head at school. Which is great to show your teacher that you understood the question and didn't plug it into a calculator, but unnecessary later on.

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#778

Post by Qub3d »

TeeWEE wrote: post #775

This smells like BS... Uber can easily track user behaviour with their own metrics, and see how many users are actually real users.. No way this would get unnoticed... OR there is something really unhealthy going on at Uber.

Something unhealthy going on at Uber? That's never happened before...

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/50000...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-to-pay-148-million-penalty...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/0...

Re: Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

#779

Post by dd36 »

zpeti wrote: post #752
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, FB ads were worse than useless for my business, all they attracted was 90% fraud. Looking at what business Ozonetel is in (i.e. sales are directed towards business owners), I'm not suprised FB ads were also worthless for you. I get the sense FB ads are really only good for things a consumer might impulse buy (e.g. clothing, games, small gifts, etc.) but anything where the user is probably going to do som…

Reading this thread I really start to feel people don't understand what fraud is. You shouldn't be calling it fraud when in the next paragraph you say that FB does work for impulse buys and not "ozonetel" Just because your ads didn't convert, or 90% of the traffic you buy didn't convert, doesn't make it fraud. Fraud is malice, with the intention to defraud someone and not deliver what you promise, with intent. This i…

Here are the California jury instructions for fraud and deceit: https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1900/

There are definitely multiple categories this would fall under.

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