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We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

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Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#81

Post by blauwbilgorgel »

rfergie wrote: post #31
droopyEyelids wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, this leads to the other flaw in the argument, where eBay has been the company most famous for abusing Google's ads, and using them in a completely nonsensical way. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-not-to-run-a-ppc-camp... I'm sure you've noticed that a search for any noun called forth an ad for eBay. You're enticed to "buy Dog Vomit on eBay" when your dog is sick. And then, even if it was something eBa…

It is very unfortunate that the extremely interesting ebay study is being ignored by the SEM community because ebay has some bad adverts. The methodology and findings should be something that advertisers look at and learn from (i.e. that traditional methods of tracking do not always do a good job of showing value) but instead people just like to point fingers and call names

It is not ignored, because eBay has some bad adverts. It did attract significant attention more than a year ago (the study was conducted in 2012, and media reported on it in early 2013).

"eBay has no idea if online ads work" would be a better title. Or "eBay can't get their online ads to work".

If you looked at eBay's search advertisements in the last years you probably have seen very ridiculous ones, like:

  Love.

  Buy it cheap on eBay
  Low Prices. New and used.
This is a significant waste of money, and seems endemic at eBay, not a rare occasion. Though it is too easy to point at this and discard the entire study, it is a relevant prior.

As a control they take MSDN/Yahoo vs. Google. The control should be a different advertiser, not a different advertisement network.

In the paper they mention removing the term "eBay Shoes" from their keywords, because they rank organically for that. They should have never added it, because it is a bad keyword for them. They should advertise on the brand name shoes they are selling. This ties back to the bad adverts by eBay: Fixing your mistakes and seeing change, is different from performing a controlled experiments on a healthy advertiser.

They muse about "the types of consumer that may already be informed about the advertiser’s product". This adds a few problems: those customers may have been informed through the very advertisements they now claim don't work. Suddenly shutting down advertisements does not negate the effects of running advertisements years before that. The paper does not investigate the effect that ads have on brand recognition and brand trust. Usability tests show people clicking on advertisements first, because then they expect quality and a simple commercially interesting proposition.

I do think the problem they are describing "some customers may be so aware of a brand, that advertising to them becomes worthless" is valid. Maybe ad networks could help here and implement a form of "demarketing" next to their "remarketing" options: Once a user has enough knowledge of the brand, stop advertising. But a better (and currently available) method could be to apply remarketing and give these power users tailored advertisements. An example could be a buyer's program, promoting a new product from a well-purchased brand, or a referral bonus. To continue offering them advertisements like "eBay shoes" does not make much sense.

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#82

Post by BrandonM »

This topic came up in a month-old submission about why eBay lost many of its organic rankings in Google's Panda 4.0 release. Some of the comments from that discussion seem quite relevant to this one.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7788804

When Slate refers to eBay research, is it based on methods that allowed ads like this gem?

    Vomit sale
    New & used Vomit.
    Check out the deals now!
    www.ebay.com
(http://www.wordstream.com/images/panda-4-ebay-2.jpg)

If so, can we really take their findings seriously?

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#83

Post by porsupah »

mdpane wrote: post #79
gerbal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean that Apple doesn't make good products. They make pretty damn good products. But the products are only part of Apple's marketing strategy. Much of what has made Apple successful is the idea of what a Mac, an iPod, or an iPhone is. For most of the iPod's lifespan it was not the best product on the market, it was just the best marketed. In the case of macbooks, the hardware has been roughly on par with equ…

For most of the iPod's lifespan it was not the best product on the market, it was just the best marketed. I wouldn't say it was just better marketed, although that is true. It was also better designed, both in its hardware and software. An iPod in your hands felt and looked great and the scroll wheel made it intuitive to use. Anyone could easily pick it up and check out what you had in your library. Before I had one,…

Indeed. I was once engaged on a project to develop a new personal media player. QA had quite a selection of other vendors' PMPs, so we could learn from their mistakes: and ye gods and little fishes, poor UIs were abundant, not to mention often sluggish to respond.

(Sadly, ours never came to be, but that's a long and occasionally hilarious - in the DailyWTF sense - tale. Suffice to say, if your application crashes on trying to close any file, and the vendor's recommended workaround is to never close files, get ready for interesting times)

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#84

Post by rfergie »

blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #81
rfergie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very unfortunate that the extremely interesting ebay study is being ignored by the SEM community because ebay has some bad adverts. The methodology and findings should be something that advertisers look at and learn from (i.e. that traditional methods of tracking do not always do a good job of showing value) but instead people just like to point fingers and call names

It is not ignored, because eBay has some bad adverts. It did attract significant attention more than a year ago (the study was conducted in 2012, and media reported on it in early 2013). "eBay has no idea if online ads work" would be a better title. Or "eBay can't get their online ads to work". If you looked at eBay's search advertisements in the last years you probably have seen very ridiculous ones, like: Love. Buy…

I am aware of the significant attention this paper got about a year ago. In my filter bubble (and I am in a massive filter bubble with regards to this kind of thing) the attention was similar to the rest of your comment - focusing on ebays failures of execution rather than the failure of measurement.

Other advertisers do not make the same mistakes as ebay with regards to landing pages, adverts or keywords selection but many make the same mistakes when it comes to measuring their advertising value.

Now, perhaps the errors caused by faulty measurement are not as important for other advertisers and I can see why this might be the case (for the reasons you list about how ebay is running their PPC) but what should be an opportunity for the SEM industry to look at how their work in valued and measured has instead turned into something else

> As a control they take MSDN/Yahoo vs. Google

They also used a geographic split as a control. E.g. if in the past areas A and B have performed similarly then pick one of them at random to stop showing ads in.

AdWords geo-targeting combined with this technique is a way for other advertisers - regardless of scale - to run similar tests. But we won't see many doing this because of the attitude that it is ebays execution that sucks rather than their measurement

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#85

Post by omonra »

rumcajz wrote: post #78
omonra wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article is that the sale would happen regardless of the ad. Ie showing an ad on Google to someone who types 'Ebay' in the search string is a waste of money - since Ebay shows up as the first natural result anyways.

Isn't it a way to prevent eBay's competition to show ads on 'eBay' keyword?

There are still plenty of other spots in paid results for the competition :)

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#86

Post by nitrogen »

mdpane wrote: post #79
gerbal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean that Apple doesn't make good products. They make pretty damn good products. But the products are only part of Apple's marketing strategy. Much of what has made Apple successful is the idea of what a Mac, an iPod, or an iPhone is. For most of the iPod's lifespan it was not the best product on the market, it was just the best marketed. In the case of macbooks, the hardware has been roughly on par with equ…

For most of the iPod's lifespan it was not the best product on the market, it was just the best marketed. I wouldn't say it was just better marketed, although that is true. It was also better designed, both in its hardware and software. An iPod in your hands felt and looked great and the scroll wheel made it intuitive to use. Anyone could easily pick it up and check out what you had in your library. Before I had one,…

Anyone could easily pick it up and check out what you had in your library.

This is subjective, of course. I'm lost every time I have to change songs on a friend's iPod classic :-). Give me traditional buttons or a touch screen any day.

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#87

Post by cm2012 »

hackuser wrote: post #74
cm2012 wrote: post #68

As someone responsible for $xxxxxx monthly spend in online advertising, it clearly works. We measure it pretty much from end to end.

> As someone responsible for $xxxxxx monthly spend in online advertising, it clearly works. We measure it pretty much from end to end. Do you know how much profit you would have earned without the advertising? How do you determine that (if you can say)? That is, without the ads, some customers would purchase more or more profitable products; some would purchase the same, and some would purchase less. But how would it…

Yes. If we stop advertising we stop getting sales proportional to the advertising spend. Most people arent coca cola.

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#88

Post by baddox »

josu wrote: post #71
baddox wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about economy of scale in manufacturing, and (mostly) competent design and engineering teams?

From a consumer's perspective all I see is a bunch of high end cell phones with very similar features and priced the same. Nevertheless, many people decide to buy the Samsung flagship phone over the Sony, LG or HTC. Better economies of scale could be the reason if they decided to price their phones lower, but they don't. So that it's not the reason why people are choosing Samsung. About the competent design, I don't…

An economy of scale doesn't necessarily mean they price their phones lower. It could mean they offer more expensive products at the same price and with the same profit as their competitors, or offer equivalent products at the same price but higher profit than their competitors.

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#89

Post by blauwbilgorgel »

rfergie wrote: post #84
blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not ignored, because eBay has some bad adverts. It did attract significant attention more than a year ago (the study was conducted in 2012, and media reported on it in early 2013). "eBay has no idea if online ads work" would be a better title. Or "eBay can't get their online ads to work". If you looked at eBay's search advertisements in the last years you probably have seen very ridiculous ones, like: Love. Buy…

I am aware of the significant attention this paper got about a year ago. In my filter bubble (and I am in a massive filter bubble with regards to this kind of thing) the attention was similar to the rest of your comment - focusing on ebays failures of execution rather than the failure of measurement. Other advertisers do not make the same mistakes as ebay with regards to landing pages, adverts or keywords selection b…

The paper sure is interesting and should add value to the debate and approaches to SEM. To discard it by scoffing at eBay's execution would indeed be your own loss.

My biggest take-away is the saturation of advertisements and the effects it can have on running ad campaigns. Yours seem to focus on the common correlation-causation misinterpretation, and faulty measurement approaches.

I do think there are enough problems with the paper to not grant it the authority to speak for an entire industry (as Slate put it). eBay is just one (and a very big and unique) advertiser in this arena, and every move it makes (even to measure it) changes the entire ad network.

> They also used a geographic split as a control.

Thank you for this correction.

Aside: The problem with eBay's non-profitable advertisements seems to me a beautiful problem: The paper authors subscribe to the benefits of saved costs. I do not think that the marketing department of eBay subscribes to this benefit. For them, and external ad agencies, the more ads your run, the more clicks you get, the more you get rewarded, the better your monthly reports look. People at eBay's online marketing department must be smart enough to realize that many of these ads were worthless to the company, yet it was worth it for them to empty the monthly budget on a list of generic keywords.

Re: We Have No Idea If Online Ads Work

#90

Post by Shivetya »

Well far too many online ads do the exact opposite with me, as in I tend to avoid the advertiser and/or their product. This usually only occurs when the ad is presented in some fashion which inconveniences me in the task I am using the site for.

Unobtrusive ads, more power to you. Pop up on me, find ways to circumvent blockers against such, or hide parts of the article I want to read, you get mentally flagged.

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