No tv, adblock, ad skip, filter ads in email. But then I watch youtube of tech hardware, and want the new shiny. Oh look, sponsored video...
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The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
141–150 of 176 posts
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#142I have had the thought that there is something wrong, that I can access nearly any song of my choice on YouTube, with the small penalty of skipping an advert after 5 seconds. Many of the adverts aren't even for products I'm interested in. They're either get-rich-quick schemes, or repeat-ad-nauseum ads for software like Grammerly, which I will never use. If Google has some sort of complex picture about me, by invading…
I think the typical commentator on HN is unaware of how they think very differently from the typical American.
Advertising definitely works. I've seen it work among many people in person. Even people who agree that ads are dumb, I've seen decide to get some candy after seeing an ad for it on TV.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#143Tangentially related, I think political advertising actually does work. Not just ads ran by candidates, but all the different memes and infographics and whatnot. At least in America. Most Americans are sort of middle of the road, but in recent years, the right has gotten very good at drawing people in through media. I know many people who are now all wrapped up in all sorts of right wing conspiracies and viewpoints t…
Is that advertising? And would it mean that they would vote for a particular candidate?
The typical consensus I have seen among political operatives is that TV ads very clearly move the needle, whereas online ads don't seem to.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#144It's an idea that just won't die ... If we concatenate enough garbage: (subprime loans, training inputs, consumer information) then the result: (MBS tranches, AI, targeted ads) is somehow not garbage . This appears to be a wonderful model for separating gullible investors from their money so I suspect we'll keep seeing new incarnations of it ...
> This appears to be a wonderful model for separating gullible investors from their money so I suspect
The original model, selective investment funds with management fees, seems to be doing quite well a century on.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#145I've always wanted to inquire the significance of advertising from the standpoint of the business, and yet its failure to please users. Advertising sucks from the standpoint of the user, and some say that if you want to scale any online business from 0 customers to N, advertising is pivotal and word of mouth won't do. Whether it comes in the flavor of give $10 to sign up a Paypal account, banner ads, search engine ad…
We haven’t “solved” user hostility because the industry still relies on user data collection and tracking on a massive scale with default opt in rather than opt out. Consumers are spooked by that and the industry has (by and large) failed to convince them of the utility of targeted advertising. It’s the original sin of online ads that nobody really wants to address. Because of that, we have a lot of rather shady play…
I feel like there is a distinction between targeting ads based on the profile you've created on their site (say, Facebook) and targeting ads by tracking users all over the internet.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#146Oof! Think about it, when was the last time you saw an ad, and went on to buy that product or service? Who are these people who see an advertisement on the side of the road and then go out and buy that very thing?
Very different from most people on HN, but very common in reality. I've witnessed this exact thing multiple times: see an ad for something, immediately have to go get it.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#147I 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…
You make a good point. But there is one more reason for advertising than just conversions. If Coca Cola were to stop advertising, it would free up substantial ad space allowing for their competition to advertise cheap. These large brands don't just advertise for branding/conversions. They plan their spend budget so as to actually influence the bid rate. This makes it harder for newer brands to compete and get any viable ad exposure at affordable prices.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#148Earlier 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…
I assume there must be some effect in getting new drinkers. I’ve tried lots of colas. I’m never buying a Pepsi if there is Coke. I will always buy soft drinks in this order: Cherry Coke, Cherry Dr Pepper, Dr Pepper, Coke, maybe I’ll just have water. At this point no amount of advertising will change my mind.
This is a common anti-pattern when smart people start thinking about (brand) advertising.
“I have such strongly held opinions about my favorite soda! No amount of advertising will change my mind. I am immune to advertising!”
And then they go to the grocery store, and remember their girlfriend told them to pick up some fabric softener, which they know nothing about. So they look on the shelf and they think “Ok, Downy, I’ve heard of that one. It’s probably fine.” And away they go.
And the next time they need fabric softener, they reach for it again, because it worked fine last time, and what’s the point in spending any more time thinking about fabric softener?
This is what brand awareness advertising is meant for. It’s meant to change your weakly held preferences, not your strongly held ones.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can run lift tests on Facebook which measure exactly that. You can't measure it across multiple advertising platforms very effectively though.
I don't know what lift tests are. It should be easy enough to devise a tool for measuring incremental ROAS under the following assumptions: a) all purchases happen online; b) I have a complete history of ad impressions and ad clicks for each user who made a purchase As you said yourself, b) breaks down for multiple platforms. It also breaks down if users have disabled tracking.
Lift tests are these things: https://www.facebook.com/business/m/one-sheeters/conversion-...
They are essentially what one needs to measure incremental ROAS of one's advertising.
Now, there are obvious caveats (online, tracking etc) but they're much much better than what's available for other platforms.
Re: The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Direct conversion to sale via clickthroughs are an almost invisibly small part of online ads . No advertiser uses only that metric for determining ROAS.
Which metrics are you referring to? I can’t speak for ad agencies, but every company I’ve worked with to do advertising measured ROAS using customer attribution (which ad campaign brought which customer, and how much did that customer spend).
> which ad campaign brought which customer
And how do they determine that?