What if performance advertising is just an analytics scam? • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

Ha. It's much worse than this.

Some years ago, I treated myself to some nice Sophia Webster shoes.

I'm a tall man, my feet don't fit in any of her shoes, but a colleague had pointed out that er, they're for looking at, and if they're on my feet it's actually harder for me to look at them, so, why not buy them and put them on a display shelf like I would a nice sculpture. That made good sense. I bought an arbitrary size that was available - it's way easier to get the shoes you want if they don't need to fit.

Now of course as a tall man, even though it's not unknown for me to buy heels (in a size I can actually wear) it's rare, and I don't buy skirts, have no use for a bra and so on. But still, advertising isn't very smart, so it's not a huge surprise that after buying those shoes I got considerably more adverts for stereotypically female clothing and accessories even on platforms that explicitly know my gender and previous purchasing habits.

What did surprise me is how many adverts I got for the exact pair of shoes I had just bought. Not similar shoes from other designers. Not other shoes Sophia Webster has designed - the exact identical pair of shoes, often from the exact vendor who just sold them to me.

And my theory as to why is pretty simple. Advertising doesn't understand time's arrow. If you only ask whether these adverts are associated with my buying the shoes that's true. They showed adverts to me, I bought the shoes. The only problem is that causality is reversed, I bought the shoes and then they showed me the adverts.

This was confirmed to me by adverts the grocery delivery company I sometimes use ran at that time. The adverts specified the exact goods I buy from them, perishable goods which I had already booked a delivery of, saying hey, why not buy these from us. Well, I already did, duh? But so long as nobody remembers to analyse whether my actual purchase decision (not the delivery) was before or after the advert these adverts probably look like they have amazingly high conversion rates and you couldn't have targeted a traditional advert so narrowly, it must be worth it...

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

#212

Post by ianlevesque » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

floatingatoll wrote: post #208

vkou wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You tell a cab driver to take you to Morton's Meats and instead they take you to Shelly's Steaks (who pays them a kickback each time they do this), and then charge you for that detour to earn their kickback when you demand they take you to Morton's like you asked in the first place. Is this appropriate behavior by the taxi driver? Would a regular person consider this deserving of punishment? Is Google's search result…

It's a poor analogy. Google isn't taking you to the wrong website, they are showing you the alternatives at the same time as the search result you wanted.

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

#213

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #205

titzer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was the best option. But wow, you just trust a billion lines of closed source written to satisfy ad optimization criteria with zero transparency? I mean, we can subject things to public oversight.

> But wow, you just trust a billion lines of closed source written to satisfy ad optimization criteria with zero transparency? I trust that a multi-national serving multiple markets is going to give me less nationally biased information than the government of a superpower (with political ambitions that span the globe.) It's why I generally don't turn to the Voice of America for news.

[deleted]

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

#214

Post by ajsnigrutin » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #18

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. 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…

This sucks for me as a consumer too.

I want a WS skillet, and the first X results are for lodge... I don't need a lodge, I don't want a lodge, i want a WS, and google is not showing me what I want.

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

#215

Post by ErikVandeWater » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #211

Ha. It's much worse than this. Some years ago, I treated myself to some nice Sophia Webster shoes. I'm a tall man, my feet don't fit in any of her shoes, but a colleague had pointed out that er, they're for looking at, and if they're on my feet it's actually harder for me to look at them, so, why not buy them and put them on a display shelf like I would a nice sculpture. That made good sense. I bought an arbitrary si…

On a related note, Google's poor targeted advertising makes me feel safer. My YouTube account uses the same gmail account I have connected with Android. I use Google Photos routinely but still got an ad explaining how Google Photos worked (using cats as an example). Google may know I like cats, but it doesn't know how I use my phone.

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

#216

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:37 PM UTC

_carbyau_ wrote: post #209

vkou wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a reason for the saying: "Cut out the middle man." All too often the middleman is milking both sides. Google has value due to the search engine capabilities. But people realising they are being milked changes the value proposition. I think Google is safe for now, though I don't think that is a good thing.

"All too often the middleman is milking both sides."

By definition a middleman is milking both sides. Were a middleman not there, it would definitionally be better for both parties. The only case where this is not true is the one where the middleman makes no money

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

#217

Post by betenoire » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:38 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #190

worker767424 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But they call it a search engine. That would be a fairer point if they called it an ad-lookup engine

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

#218

Post by ajsnigrutin » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:38 PM UTC

dorgo wrote: post #186

peanut_worm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it enough just to click on the link?

There surely are browser extensions that click on every link, just to make the companies pay, and make advertisers look even shitter.

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

#219

Post by ssharp » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #156

ssharp wrote: post #99

I was at one company several years ago and made two big changes to digital advertising: #1 - Eliminated all paid search other than some limited branded search terms and shifted all the money to affiliates who were way better at making profits on the keywords we were competing on #2 - Eliminated all display advertising after running numerous experiments showing it provided almost not incremental conversions, even thou…

#2 is basically an industry standard for ad firms (at least good ones), you'll usually only get people buying those ads to fill budgets or to do branded advertising that's only purpose is to raise brand awareness. I don't really agree with your #1 point, but that really depends on your vertical. You couldn't really do that well in service industries or financial/legal services, etc.

In my example, I saw a lot of competitors try and fail at acquiring customers profitably. You could see the ebbs and flows of them trying as well as the well-financed players dominating spend. When the industry numbers came out, things never lined up.

That said, I’ve worked at brands where paid search and paid social are incredibly valuable channels.

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

#220

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #60

aesyondu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purposely click the non-ad link when searching in Google (because I'm too lazy to type the full url). Does that help at all, i.e., prevents unnecessary ad spend from bidding?

I do the same, but 99% of people do not, so it's really a drop in the bucket. I do wish there were some regulation such that if a user is searching for a trademarked or copyrighted term, that the best organic search result for that term should be required to show up first. I'm fine with showing competitor ads, but I don't think they should be able to show up above the trademark owner's ads.

[deleted]