How did Meta do so well and Alphabet do so poorly on revenue?
Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
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Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#42Earlier today I was watching a legaleagle video about Alex Jones' argument that he has to keep pitching dietary supplements to pay his civil debts. YouTube interrupted this video to play an ad for... dietary supplements. Great work. I'm sure Alphabet will be fine.
Why are you using youtube without ad blocker?
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Idk, but the drop in revenue is due to companies (eg coca-cola), no longer wanting to pay alphabet to have their ads displayed on alphabet's platforms, not so much as a drop in the amount of people clicking ads. (I say no longer wanting, there's still companies wanting obviously, demand for a spot on the platform is just lower). And it's mostly just the effects of monetary tightening, and companies trying to prepare…
I think this gets really close to the actual story. A ton of the money in all faangs, is between the big companies. Google paying to be the default search engine. Microsoft doing the same. Everyone paying to be the top Google result. How many stupid large payments are between the big players directly?
as I understand it, Mozilla's business is almost entirely funded by sending clicks to Google.
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#44The fact that the ad model has worked so well is always a nice reminder of how much of a bubble I live in. Personally I have never intentionally clicked on a Google/YouTube/etc ad. Never. I wonder if the general population has been getting more tech-savvy and skeptical of ads over time, but this change takes a very long time to play out. I sometimes see my dad clicking on ads because he doesn't understand the mechani…
I am with you here. It is baffling to me how there are people using the internet without an adblocker on every device!
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#45> On Thursday, the company posted its fourth consecutive decline in profit as it grapples with a slowdown in digital advertising. Layoffs as a means of cost reduction to stem the tide seems very rational.
More likely the post-pandemic all digital world didn't happen, so they can drop to still higher than 20% more than 2020 employee count and be fine.
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their model likely detected you as an outlier and might disregard your clicks
If google thought your IP was from a click farm, wouldn't it block you from youtube entirely, to avoid wasting the bandwidth?
Why give free information to your adversary instead of ignoring their clicks silently?
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#47How did Meta do so well and Alphabet do so poorly on revenue?
As a small startup founder, Facebook ads are easier and work way better than Google ads.
So much so that I’ve wondered how on Earth Google gets any business; even Reddit ads are easier to set up and work better.
Facebook ads are still expensive mind you.
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but CTR and conversion metrics still matter to ad buyers. It's much more difficult to measure the influence on my subconscious and attribute that.
I think that there is some weird effect in the ad business where this isn't the case. Look at sponsorships or untargeted ads; Red Bull may sponsor someone jumping out of a balloon at the edge of space, but it's probably hard to convert that investment to a number of extra cans of energy drink sold. I see a lot of video ads like that in the same way. Everyone watching Overwatch League is just there idling for in-game…
There’s a couple of different reasons that this happens.
- Things like Red Bull events are for general awareness and can provide a source of content that is used on other platforms. This is similar to TV or billboard advertising where you can’t measure direct impact but it’s getting eyes on your brand. There’s also the element of “we’re a big important company and you can tell because we wasted all of this money”
- In some cases brands buy a package of ad space from an agency and don’t pick where it shows up - the agency is supposed to fill ad space in front of the desired audience but can’t find enough inventory. Rather than give the money back and have a smaller budget to renew next quarter they dump it in lower quality spots.
- Some advertising is also defensive in that you’re denying space that your competitors can buy
- Occasionally brands will get a discount for a larger ad buy knowing that the ads will show up in lower performing locations - but they still got the bulk discount
- In some cases people just screw up and don’t manage budgeting, retargeting, frequency, or other limits so the automated systems find somewhere/anywhere to show the ad since the platform is guaranteeing some amount of visibility
- Content placement is definitely on the shittier end of ad quality but it can be much cheaper or may be included as part of an ad package for a specific site or publisher
Generally advertising seems to be a net negative and the increase in ad space drives down costs so ad platforms need more ad buys and more advertisers to fill the ever-growing inventory but how else are you going to tell people about your product at scale?
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#49The fact that the ad model has worked so well is always a nice reminder of how much of a bubble I live in. Personally I have never intentionally clicked on a Google/YouTube/etc ad. Never. I wonder if the general population has been getting more tech-savvy and skeptical of ads over time, but this change takes a very long time to play out. I sometimes see my dad clicking on ads because he doesn't understand the mechani…
I am with you here. It is baffling to me how there are people using the internet without an adblocker on every device!
almost every website has a paywall now that detects adblockers and nags you. the number of distinct websites I regularly visit has dwindled drastically. If Im not on reddit/HN or reading documentation, I pretty much stick to the few sites I have subscriptions to.
Re: Alphabet’s Profit Falls 34% (fourth consecutive drop) Amid Ads Slowdown
#50How did Meta do so well and Alphabet do so poorly on revenue?
Meta started getting beat up about a quarter before Alphabet. They were 6 months ahead on a hiring freeze, and 3 months ahead on layoffs. They've been thinking about this a lot longer, and markets respond to if you beat the number the market was expecting, not if you beat internal or external forecasts.