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What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

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Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#181

Post by titzer »

alphabetting wrote: post #175
titzer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very fact that you have to bid on clicks for your own damn website by paying Google, because Google has prioritized ads to the point of displaying them higher and making them almost indistinguishable from the "organic" search result proves they have intentionally created a tax on the internet. It will get worse, to the point where to get auto-completed in the omnibox you'll have to pay. TBH I am not even sure if…

I'd rather ignore some ads which are less intrusive than places like Amazon than pay a subscription fee to use search, gmail and docs which are funded by ads.

There are other options. For example, funding a publicly-owned search engine with $1 billion a year in infrastructure and development costs would be 50x cheaper than what the US spends on foodstamps. It'd be 1/10th the NSF's annual budget.

Not that that's the best option, but we could consider some new ideas.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#182

Post by vlovich123 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #69
vlovich123 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think the only on-brand search ads that should be allowed are ones for totally unrelated products OR those ads are placed below what on-brand search results would provide. Google has no incentive to fix this though because it's an extra tax they charge the entire online advertising space (+ all the other search providers do it). Carefully crafted legislation could put an end to this tax.

Well, on a good search engine, IMO, you'd have a predicted store based on the manufacturer (eg their preferred seller) then perhaps a list of top 10 competitors and something like "most recorded purchases after this search are from seller X" with "the most popular similar store is seller Y". Of course Google wouldn't give that data out as then many companies wouldn't need to advertise at all to get top billing.

That's secondary & the reason Google doesn't have this is likely because the sellers don't want to provide this. E.g. Amazon doesn't want potential customers being easily redirected to Walmart purchases. One of the many reasons Froogle died.

The simple solution is that your paid advertisements are free if it gets clicked when you're the top result anyway. That way it doesn't cost the brand any money to bid on advertisements for their own brand.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#183

Post by bogwog »

murillians wrote: post #163
citizenpaul wrote: post #109

I've been beating this drum for a decade. I once even had a marketing department shut down with analytical proof. I got tired of the marketing department with probably 50x the IT department budget constantly jumping down our throats about how "IF ONLY IT HAD DELIVERED X BY X we could have had 100,000,000,000x /s sales this month" I made a dynamic report dashboard in my first react project to analyze market spending a…

And that React project's name? Albert Einstein.

The entire management department stood up and started clapping.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#184

Post by sam0x17 »

simonsarris wrote: post #2

> Technically, when someone does a Google search for “Williams Sonoma Cast Iron Skillet,” they probably would have clicked on one of the first 10 organic results, EVERY ONE OF WHICH leads to their website. But, y’know what ol’ Billy Ma’s performance marketers couldn’t then do: prove their value to their bosses. > [picture of that search term and williams sonoma ads with shopping links] The main problem here is that i…

> The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements.

Except they won't click those competitor links, because they are already specifically looking for Williams Sonoma

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#185

Post by aerosmile »

bliteben wrote: post #95
ChuckMcM wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I politely suggest that you share with us the holes you see in the arguments and how you see them? Whether or not Rand is any good at what he does or says will be clear by your expert disassembly of his arguments.

you don't even have to be polite can't believe I read that whole comment

Rereading the post, I agree it came across as more personal than it should have been. I wish I was able to frame it more as a response to all the people advocating for alternative marketing ideas which frankly never work out. Instead, I brought in his own company into the narrative, which was below the belt. I know first hand how hard it is to get something to work, and how unlikely it is to happen time after time. I wish I could edit the comment, but HN won't let me at this point.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#186

Post by dorgo »

peanut_worm wrote: post #168
drevil-v2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way more than a dollar. If you really want to cost a company a pretty penny, click on the ad after searching for an "intent" to do something rather than the exact brand. Some of those Adwords cost many tens of dollars.

You’re kidding! A single click costs more than a dollar?

Google keyword planner tool shows cpc (cost per click) for keywords. For an online gambling keyword it shows me 14.97€ (for one click). There are other industries with cpc's of 80€ and more.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#187

Post by sam0x17 »

peanut_worm wrote: post #168
drevil-v2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way more than a dollar. If you really want to cost a company a pretty penny, click on the ad after searching for an "intent" to do something rather than the exact brand. Some of those Adwords cost many tens of dollars.

You’re kidding! A single click costs more than a dollar?

Back in the early 00s clicks on Mesothelioma were something like $24 a click because anyone who could spell it probably has it and is looking to sue.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#188

Post by twp »

peanut_worm wrote: post #168
drevil-v2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way more than a dollar. If you really want to cost a company a pretty penny, click on the ad after searching for an "intent" to do something rather than the exact brand. Some of those Adwords cost many tens of dollars.

You’re kidding! A single click costs more than a dollar?

Yes. As an experiment, I tried running a Google Ads campaign for my https://chezmoi.io open source project bidding on "dotfile manager". Twenty clicks cost me $20. I terminated the experiment quickly.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#189

Post by inthewoods »

earthboundkid wrote: post #19
dublinben wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defensive spending to protect otherwise organic traffic could also be called extortion.

Forget about the corporate POV for a second, as a user, if I'm searching for X, I probably want X in my results, no? It's the fundamental contradiction in Google's search ads model. If Google delivers users the thing they want, ads by definition have to be things users don't want.

This is the fundamental issue with all advertising-based models. Eventually, they all run into the problem of having to continue to grow. The only way to continue to grow is to display more ads, thus compromising the user experience, which starts the downfall. AOL was a great example of this. Google seems to be heading this way.

Google's original values were the ability to provide better search (common answer) and be fast (less common answer) - both of which were a complete contrast to the Alta Vista and other search engines. I could easily see Google facing disruption from a new player - but I don't think it will be another search engine. Probably a paradigm/systemic shift.

Re: What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam?

#190

Post by vkou »

worker767424 wrote: post #166
mbesto wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main problem here is that if Williams Sonoma was not advertising on that search term, Lodge and Food52 etc etc would, and then those companies would be above the Williams Sonoma organic placements. This is what is known as "on brand" Search ads. I like to call these effectively the "Google Tax" because publishers/retailers are forced to pay Google for the traffic they would have already received had the ad not…

It's not a tax, it's a protection racket. You wouldn't like it if someone looking for Williams Sonoma saw results for Sur La Table, would you? Pay up.

An ad directing shoppers to your competitors who pay them is not a protection racket, no more than a travel agency directing travelers to businesses that they have a relationship with.

It's the entire business model of aggregators and intermediaries and middle men, which compose roughly half the world's working population.

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