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What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

mackgrenfell.com

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Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#31

Post by LongTimeAnon »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> As impressive as these examples might seem, we have to consider the fact that no company would ever publicise their results had they observed the opposite. No CMO is going to go on Medium and write an article called We dropped our spend by X%, and saw our volume drop by X%. Even if they did write such a case study, it's unimaginable that it should become part of modern marketing folklore in the way that Airbnb and…

Proctor and Gamble dropped digital ad spend by...

.. oh who the fuck cares, EntrenchedNews algos already blocked this reply so you can feel important.

Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#34

Post by zaptheimpaler »

giaour wrote: post #10
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> As impressive as these examples might seem, we have to consider the fact that no company would ever publicise their results had they observed the opposite. No CMO is going to go on Medium and write an article called We dropped our spend by X%, and saw our volume drop by X%. Even if they did write such a case study, it's unimaginable that it should become part of modern marketing folklore in the way that Airbnb and…

I don’t understand the survivorship bias argument. If any company tried to follow in AirBnB’s footsteps and saw their revenue decline as ad spend went down, wouldn’t they widely publicize this fact? “Hey! AirBnB is wrong, and following their advice nearly destroyed my small business” would be a compelling read and get a lot of traction. I find it hard to believe that such a demonstration of the value of marketing wou…

Yes because every CMO knows getting a blog post to the top of HN is easily worth losing a few weeks/months worth of leads..

Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#36

Post by allendoerfer »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #22
giaour wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the survivorship bias argument. If any company tried to follow in AirBnB’s footsteps and saw their revenue decline as ad spend went down, wouldn’t they widely publicize this fact? “Hey! AirBnB is wrong, and following their advice nearly destroyed my small business” would be a compelling read and get a lot of traction. I find it hard to believe that such a demonstration of the value of marketing wou…

> If any company tried to follow in AirBnB’s footsteps and saw their revenue decline as ad spend went down, wouldn’t they widely publicize this fact? In the real world, a CMO who stopped advertising and suffered the predictable outcome would likely be removed from their job ASAP. Not boasting about shooting their company in the foot in a blog. > I find it hard to believe that such a demonstration of the value of mark…

> It's really trivial stuff to do basic analytics on where your customers are coming from when they arrive at a website and it's not hard to see which ones are arriving because they clicked on ads and which of those translate into purchases.

No it is not.

If a customer came from brand bidding, you do not know if he would not have come to your website even without the campaign.

How do you calculate where a customer originated from, if he visited the site multiple times, sometimes through paid and sometimes through free channels?

You cannot blindly trust their claim that they are creating value - even advertisers from your own company are in on it.

I am speaking from my own experience working at analytics tools for a corporation, which has a monopoly. The product name is our brand. We are the only ones selling it. Every child knows it. Think public utility.

These people will still do brand bidding.

Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#37

Post by cblconfederate »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> As impressive as these examples might seem, we have to consider the fact that no company would ever publicise their results had they observed the opposite. No CMO is going to go on Medium and write an article called We dropped our spend by X%, and saw our volume drop by X%. Even if they did write such a case study, it's unimaginable that it should become part of modern marketing folklore in the way that Airbnb and…

> Survivorship bias is the driver of these anecdotes.

Also all the articles of "We increased our ad spending by 50% and sales went up 50%" are survivorship bias. This does not (dis)prove anything

Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#38

Post by rightbyte »

allendoerfer wrote: post #36
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If any company tried to follow in AirBnB’s footsteps and saw their revenue decline as ad spend went down, wouldn’t they widely publicize this fact? In the real world, a CMO who stopped advertising and suffered the predictable outcome would likely be removed from their job ASAP. Not boasting about shooting their company in the foot in a blog. > I find it hard to believe that such a demonstration of the value of mark…

> It's really trivial stuff to do basic analytics on where your customers are coming from when they arrive at a website and it's not hard to see which ones are arriving because they clicked on ads and which of those translate into purchases. No it is not. If a customer came from brand bidding, you do not know if he would not have come to your website even without the campaign. How do you calculate where a customer or…

> I am speaking from my own experience working at analytics tools for a corporation, which has a monopoly. The product name is our brand. We are the only ones selling it. Every child knows it. Think public utility.

> These people will still do brand bidding.

Ooh this pisses me off so much. My IT consulting employee bids on their unique name. I guess the marketing department use it to fudge conversation rate of their ad spend. A scam.

Unless you are a dropshipper the value of Google traffic is way lower than appearant since people use Google as a address bar nowadays. And showing ads for people that already are considering to buy your product ... that is the worst kind of statistical causality poisoning.

Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#39

Post by bryans »

jfoster wrote: post #35

One point that I'm surprised the article didn't make: despite the findings of their experiments, Airbnb & Ebay still advertise.

Not only do they both still advertise, but their ability to maintain revenue without massive ad spending is based entirely on their users marketing on their behalf -- not on some imaginary perpetual momentum. At least half of Airbnb hosts have their own website and many make their own local and regional ad buys.

Re: What if performance advertising isn't just an analytics scam?

#40

Post by iamacyborg »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #22
giaour wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the survivorship bias argument. If any company tried to follow in AirBnB’s footsteps and saw their revenue decline as ad spend went down, wouldn’t they widely publicize this fact? “Hey! AirBnB is wrong, and following their advice nearly destroyed my small business” would be a compelling read and get a lot of traction. I find it hard to believe that such a demonstration of the value of marketing wou…

> If any company tried to follow in AirBnB’s footsteps and saw their revenue decline as ad spend went down, wouldn’t they widely publicize this fact? In the real world, a CMO who stopped advertising and suffered the predictable outcome would likely be removed from their job ASAP. Not boasting about shooting their company in the foot in a blog. > I find it hard to believe that such a demonstration of the value of mark…

> I think this idea that all advertising people have no idea what they're doing and are unable to quantify their results is a weird HN bubble thing.

I’ve worked in marketing for a decade and my experience is that most of my colleagues are making things up as they go. Very few have any formal education in marketing, let alone have any interest in reading marketing textbooks or studies and even fewer still have any maths background.

I suspect things are different at larger and more prestigious companies, but the state of marketing for SME’s is pretty dire.

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