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How can we know if paid search advertising works?

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Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#21

Post by bthrn »

davchana wrote: post #17
hollasch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by "unfettered access"?

In US that means routing number and account number. Having these two enables anybody to push or pull any amount of money (or at least try to pull, based on availability). Its crazy, companies promise that they will not pull more than asked, but sometimes coding error causes big problems, the one I remember etsy pulling thousands instead of 10s, because of a decimal point error, so pulling like 1486 instead of 14.86.

This information is on the bottom of every paper check. While it is probably not advisable to broadcast and post up everywhere, it is not supposed to be a secret.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#22

Post by skilled »

Substack prefetching my email address based on historical data is kind gross.

I appreciate the downvotes, but it is a clear dark pattern. Unless I have accepted their terms and didn't read through them. It is the only site that does it, and they do it for everyone who is a Substack customer.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#23

Post by noasaservice »

Zircom wrote: post #19
BizarroLand wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were uncomfortable giving ebay the ability to wire their money into their checking account out of fear that ebay would then later take money directly from their bank account, not even considering that if ebay did anything fraudulent their banks and the federal government (assuming they are American) would have their backs in reclaiming the money.

I think you're being incredibly dismissive and a little condescending for no reason about his concerns, I'm sure they "considered" that while yes there is legal recourse if eBay were to take money out they weren't supposed to, the process isn't a 100% guarantee by any means, and you're still out that money while it's being investigated/resolved. Not everyone is in the privileged position of being able to float a coup…

I get that there are external costs for providing things like cutting a check, or sending to paypal.

If that's the case, then let me agree to paying 1% or so to send via another method. I'm only asking for that option.

I don't allow any organization to reach into my bank accounts using an ACH. Simply put - I work in IT, and know that these systems have errors, and the errors are almost always in their favor. And I'm on the hook for a whole bunch of sadness waiting for them to "finish their investigation 8 weeks from now".

However, the biggest problem isn't that they demand this, but they demanded this *after* I had 5 sales go through.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#24

Post by MaxBarraclough »

BizarroLand wrote: post #15
hollasch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by "unfettered access"?

They were uncomfortable giving ebay the ability to wire their money into their checking account out of fear that ebay would then later take money directly from their bank account, not even considering that if ebay did anything fraudulent their banks and the federal government (assuming they are American) would have their backs in reclaiming the money.

The existence of a means of recourse doesn't undermine the point that they don't want eBay to have that power over their finances in the first place. Would you want your landlord to have unrestricted access (but for the law) to your finances? How about your neighbour?

By means of analogy: the utility of Android's fine-grain app permissions system is not rendered obsolete by data-protection laws.

It's especially galling as eBay could, presumably, just offer to wire the money over after enough time had passed that the buyer can't complain that the item didn't arrive as described. (This would cut out PayPal and card-transaction fees, which is presumably the whole point.) They choose not to offer this.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#26

Post by tsimionescu »

austincheney wrote: post #3

Google does make money from ads, but that is not their primary business. Yes they have AdWords and they bought DoubleClick around 2007. They also have YouTube that took them forever to figure out how to monetize. They bought Urchin (Google Analytics) specifically to monetize AdWords. Google’s primary business is search. They monetize search in a couple different ways. The primary revenue model for search is micro auc…

Your point is completely unclear. The vast majority of Google's money is coming from selling advertising. The have multiple ways of selling advertising - advertising on Google Search itself, advertising on other people's pages, advertising in YouTube videos etc. But it's ultimately all money from advertising.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#27

Post by 6510 »

noasaservice wrote: post #23
Zircom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being incredibly dismissive and a little condescending for no reason about his concerns, I'm sure they "considered" that while yes there is legal recourse if eBay were to take money out they weren't supposed to, the process isn't a 100% guarantee by any means, and you're still out that money while it's being investigated/resolved. Not everyone is in the privileged position of being able to float a coup…

I get that there are external costs for providing things like cutting a check, or sending to paypal. If that's the case, then let me agree to paying 1% or so to send via another method. I'm only asking for that option. I don't allow any organization to reach into my bank accounts using an ACH. Simply put - I work in IT, and know that these systems have errors, and the errors are almost always in their favor. And I'm…

You are already at their mercy. If they chose to take money out of your account I'm sure they could do it in ways legal enough to get away with.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#28

Post by JustARandomGuy »

vgeek wrote: post #2

The article fails to mention that shortly after this made the rounds in the marketing communities, eBay suddenly got a very large SEO penalty. Conspiracy theories aside, I once inherited a large Adwords account with nearly 25% of spend dedicated to branded KW bidding. Simply dialing back bids by 90%+ dropped impression share from 95% to 80%, but the paid branded clicks just shifted to organic branded clicks-- confirm…

>that shortly after this made the rounds in the marketing communities

I'd love to read more about this. Do you have any recommended "marketing communities" that I should visit?

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#29

Post by jazzyjackson »

bthrn wrote: post #21
davchana wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In US that means routing number and account number. Having these two enables anybody to push or pull any amount of money (or at least try to pull, based on availability). Its crazy, companies promise that they will not pull more than asked, but sometimes coding error causes big problems, the one I remember etsy pulling thousands instead of 10s, because of a decimal point error, so pulling like 1486 instead of 14.86.

This information is on the bottom of every paper check. While it is probably not advisable to broadcast and post up everywhere, it is not supposed to be a secret.

Right, its security by deterrence. Besides its not like you can anonymously drain someones bank account, someone claims fraud on your 10,000$ charge you're getting a phone call from your bank.

Re: How can we know if paid search advertising works?

#30

Post by vgeek »

JustARandomGuy wrote: post #28
vgeek wrote: post #2

The article fails to mention that shortly after this made the rounds in the marketing communities, eBay suddenly got a very large SEO penalty. Conspiracy theories aside, I once inherited a large Adwords account with nearly 25% of spend dedicated to branded KW bidding. Simply dialing back bids by 90%+ dropped impression share from 95% to 80%, but the paid branded clicks just shifted to organic branded clicks-- confirm…

>that shortly after this made the rounds in the marketing communities I'd love to read more about this. Do you have any recommended "marketing communities" that I should visit?

https://searchengineland.com/google-ebay-penalty-cost-197031

This relates to the ebay penalty. I think one of SEland's founders actually left to take a job at Google as an evangelist. You can probably search for "ebay seo penalty" and find more references. Other notable penalties that were well documented include RapGenius and GV backed Thumbtack and Nest, which quickly had their penalties reversed if I recall correctly.

https://seobook.com/blog is the only place I follow any more, since it is more critical of the digital marketing ecosystem. There are so many snake oil salespeople and clueless marketers, so this is a refreshing commentary.

https://seroundtable.com is good for rumors and breaking news.

https://www.seobythesea.com/ a more technical blog that frequently examines Google's patents.

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