Live data from Hacker News

The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

thecorrespondent.com

51–60 of 176 posts

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#51
post #13

I remember reading this article back in 2019 when it was originally written. Unclear why it is being dusted off now when it is still just as wrong as it was then. Yes, it is probably hard for a large, well-known brand like eBay or Procter & Gamble or Coca-Cola to measure their return from online advertising. If Coca-Cola stopped all advertising for 1 week, would anything really change? Probably not. And it’s not as i…

To be fair, the point of the article is that ROAS is not a very good metric, and while most of the article is wrong in that it effectively calls all advertising worthless as a result, it's not wrong about that one methodological point. What matters is incremental ROAS - not the conversions following exposure, but rather the conversions that would not have happened but for the exposure. For small companies that have n…

The point you're talking about ROAS/incremental ROAS is quite moot actually. Every online ad tracks the user from the moment they click the ad to whatever events they make (e.g. add to cart, purchase, etc). So the measured ROAS is exactly for the users who'd come via the ad and not any others.

I don't want to be offending but this is honestly a very basic point, of course one would only measure the Return On Ad Spend from the user's acquired by said ad and not any others... Advertisers are familiar with all such basic statistics and Google/FB ads give you very easy tools to track any person who clicks on an ad throughout their entire journey.

Edit: I was mistaken as described in the comments below

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#52
post #23
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s simple. You use a URL with the campaign id, and store that when the customer clicks through, then when a sale is made you count that towards the campaign. In offline advertising people would achieve this using campaign-specific phone numbers or discount code given in the ad. Online advertising math is not rocket science. If ROAS is positive you continue the campaign, if not you abandon it or try other methods.

Guess we'll skip branding and awareness campaigns, ignore all post-view purchases, not use cross-device or cross-channel attribution, and not look at attribution of offline conversion/visitation activity. If the only thing you do is Search and Email Blasts, the query string on your URL might work okay.

The query string method will not provide stats for the above point; but the newer methods e.g. using the FB pixel that tracks users based on the user's email/userid you create can accomplish much of that (only offline conversions are difficult, but there are still modern ways to match an offline customer with their past ad exposure e.g. if you get their email/phone on purchase...)

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#53
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you. My point wasn't that Coke-style brand advertising was worthless, just that it's extremely difficult to measure without much longer experiments - specifically because it's been so successful.

I remember an experiment about coparing cola and psi, they found advertisement of cola was so successful that people saw a cola bottle will let them feel it more delicious. I assume they want to keep this advantage in internet era

Wouldn’t it be better just to have it as product placement rather than advertising? Warren Buffet makes it look great, 5 cans a day. With his longevity and investments he’s great for them.

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#54
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the point of the article is that ROAS is not a very good metric, and while most of the article is wrong in that it effectively calls all advertising worthless as a result, it's not wrong about that one methodological point. What matters is incremental ROAS - not the conversions following exposure, but rather the conversions that would not have happened but for the exposure. For small companies that have n…

That’s why these companies invest so much in advertising. Market share is gained or lost in an instant. If Coke switched off their advertising they would have gained this market share in recent years? https://www.statista.com/statistics/225464/market-share-of-l...

Is there a control to prove it was advertising? They bought a lot of brands and there isn’t evidence that online marketing was the reason.

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#55
post #13

I remember reading this article back in 2019 when it was originally written. Unclear why it is being dusted off now when it is still just as wrong as it was then. Yes, it is probably hard for a large, well-known brand like eBay or Procter & Gamble or Coca-Cola to measure their return from online advertising. If Coca-Cola stopped all advertising for 1 week, would anything really change? Probably not. And it’s not as i…

> And it’s not as if anyone is clicking Google search ads for Coca-Cola and ordering a 6-pack right there. This is the same problem that these companies have with TV advertising.

Supermarkets already have a loyalty card program where you receive a small discount and in return you agree to receive targeted advertising based on your purchases.

Why don't these loyalty programs add a clause saying that they may also share your personal information with Google? That would mean Coca-Cola or Proctor and Gamble could see how much they spent on advertising to a particular person, and how much that person spent in buying the company's products.

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#56

This sounds great and I want to believe it, but it feels like another case of someone saying the sky is falling when it clearly hasn't. What will it take for this advertising bubble to pop? Is it even a bubble?

> What will it take for this advertising bubble to pop? Browsers shipping with uBlock Origin included.

90%+ of relevant traffic is mobile 95%+ of mobile traffic is native

Don’t delude yourself

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#59
post #13

I remember reading this article back in 2019 when it was originally written. Unclear why it is being dusted off now when it is still just as wrong as it was then. Yes, it is probably hard for a large, well-known brand like eBay or Procter & Gamble or Coca-Cola to measure their return from online advertising. If Coca-Cola stopped all advertising for 1 week, would anything really change? Probably not. And it’s not as i…

This rings true completely from my experience. I run an eBay store that has pretty decent revenues but no brand recognition, and we make pretty heavy use of their Promoted Listings function. We've generally found for competitive items that sacrificing 5% to ad spend allows us to increase the price of the item by 20% without experiencing any reduction in sales. There is no way to fake that. For my other business, thou…

I think the audience makes a huge difference. I mainly sell to a technical audience and Adwords stopped being effective for me years ago.

Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)

#60
post #13

I remember reading this article back in 2019 when it was originally written. Unclear why it is being dusted off now when it is still just as wrong as it was then. Yes, it is probably hard for a large, well-known brand like eBay or Procter & Gamble or Coca-Cola to measure their return from online advertising. If Coca-Cola stopped all advertising for 1 week, would anything really change? Probably not. And it’s not as i…

I have a suspicion that the great majority of businesses have no idea whether their advertising is effective or not. Of course this is encouraged by all the dark patterns you see in the Adwords control panel.
Post reply on HN