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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?

#351

Post by tehjoker »

smsm42 wrote: post #259
tehjoker wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol if you think that isn't happening right now. Google made a change to its algorithms sometime in the past 5 years to surface "authoritative" sources, meaning sources that toe the state department line. For example, the World Socialist Web Site, which has a consistent anti-war line reported being demoted. "Google blocked every one of the WSWS’s 45 top search terms" (8/2017) https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/…

There may be an air gap between Google and the government, but there's certainly zero air gap between Google and the Democratic Party.

Google is a revolving door. It might be biased dem, but I really doubt they don't try to hire people like former generals or intelligence people.

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

#352

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

syrrim wrote: post #249
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.

Google is offering a service, namely a way to connect your customers to your website. Arguably, on brand ads are just a way to pay for that service.

That's not a service, that's a racket... As the previous user described

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

#353

Post by joe_the_user »

tekknik wrote: post #331
joe_the_user wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, most businesses exist to provide a good or service and get some bit extra beyond their costs. This is known as "profit".

The problem here is it’s not a “bit”, but “a lot”

I don't think Google has a profit rate massively higher than other similar companies (say, Apple or Facebook). It gets a lot of profit because it is large.

Compare: https://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/profit_margin https://ycharts.com/companies/FB/profit_margin

Of course, manufacturing companies have a lot less: https://ycharts.com/companies/GM/profit_margin

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

#354

Post by photochemsyn »

lukestevens wrote: post #224
photochemsyn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also fair to say that if you let the marketers drive business decisions it's a recipe for disaster. Pushing low-quality product out the door just to hit some quarterly sales goal, that's what marketers will push. Epic failures with disastrous long-term consequences are the typical result (Boeing MAX for example).

If you think the Boing 737 MAX disaster was caused by those idiots in marketing calling the shots then you just proved engineeringwoke’s point.

My understanding was that Boeing wanted to prevent Airbus from winning contracts and so pushed the schedule hard. That's the sales and marketing division talking isn't it?

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

#355

Post by dodobirdlord »

tomjen3 wrote: post #336
dodobirdlord wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which means, with the right tools for spoofing my identity, I could cost them $1000 an hour. Very, very sophisticated systems exist to prevent spoofed identities from counting as ad clicks.

Said systems can probably cope with most of the regular stuff, but what about an army of Twitter followers? Most are going to be signed in, they are going to be spread out geographically, they are going to be real people with real browsers with cookies, etc.

Yes, but those aren’t spoofed identities, they’re actual humans intentionally clicking the link. This is harder for the defender to defend against, but it’s also vastly harder for the attacker to scale. Defenses against this sort of “organic” traffic do exist, because this is something that people committing ad fraud attempt to do using compromised browsers of real people.

Edit: I mostly want to stress that there’s a huge body of (largely proprietary) work on this topic. Thousands of skilled people have been full-time employed for decades thinking about exclusively this topic, on both the offensive and defensive side, in a continuously escalating arms race. Anyone just getting started on this topic has a couple of decades of literature review to catch up on before they should imagine that their proposals are novel. I don’t mean to discourage you if it’s a topic you find interesting, but you should bear in mind that the answer to “But has anyone thought of XYZ?” is “Yes” for basically all values of XYZ. There’s a lot of money at stake if the answer is no.

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

#356

Post by tomrod »

bombcar wrote: post #234
tomrod wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is untrue. A small proportion, but most people searching for something specific what that something that is specific. If I search for a Dell computer, no way will I buy Apple. Likewise if I use Bing to search for Chrome, no way will I download edge except for user error.

It's when the phrase is at or near generalization that it comes into play - someone searching for Kleenex likely doesn't care what tissue they find, and many people who Google Google would be happy to click Bing if it popped up first. "Dominos" might be one where people wouldn't mind ordering from Pizza Hut as they're using it as a generic term for pizza.

I'm quite certain brand confusion is entirely the result of a poor advertising system that allows it.

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

#357

Post by floatingatoll »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #299
kbenson wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. If you want a more accurate analogy, it's like getting into a cab and asking to go to Morton's Meats and the cab driver saying "are you sure? I know this really great place called Shelley's Steaks that's better and cheaper! What do you say?" and then you get to make a call as to whether to trust the cab driver (google) has your best interests at heart or not, and whether to go where you originally wanted or to…

Your analogy is much more transparent about it. Google is more like the following. "Hi, I would like to go to Morton's meats" "Sure, I can take you to Shelly's" "No, I said Morton's" "Oh, the steak house downtown. Sure, I can take you to Billy's" "What? No! Morton, you hear me" "Ah, yeah, Morton, here you go.... by the way, the other places paid for ads" Much less transparent, much more obnoxious.

Don't forget the real-time bidding market. If you're wearing an expensive watch, Shelly's will give the driver a 10% bonus, or if you have a nice pocket square, then Morton's will offer you a window table.

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

#358

Post by lossolo »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #355
tomjen3 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said systems can probably cope with most of the regular stuff, but what about an army of Twitter followers? Most are going to be signed in, they are going to be spread out geographically, they are going to be real people with real browsers with cookies, etc.

Yes, but those aren’t spoofed identities, they’re actual humans intentionally clicking the link. This is harder for the defender to defend against, but it’s also vastly harder for the attacker to scale. Defenses against this sort of “organic” traffic do exist, because this is something that people committing ad fraud attempt to do using compromised browsers of real people. Edit: I mostly want to stress that there’s a…

It sounds like a really fascinating topic! If someone is interested, where he/she would need to start? any papers that review most/all methods that are up to date?

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

#359

Post by lifeplusplus »

justinbaker84 wrote: post #279
myth2018 wrote: post #174

During pandemics, I got really suspicious about adwords. My ads were working reasonabilly well considering the low investment I was making, with a fair amount of prospects filling my contact form on a low but steady rate. I was satisfied with the return I was getting. However, the pandemic caused a significant drop on my product's demand. I thought I was going to get little to no contacts from the moment the lockdown…

You have that right. I am a full time search marketer and here are a few things they do that illustrate their ethical standards: 1. Geo-Targeting - no matter what geographic setting you create they will run your ads all over the world unless you know how to change settings they have intentionally hidden. 2. Keyword Selection - No matter how much effort you put into selecting the best keywords they pretty much run you…

What can a new marketer do to make sure they are not getting conned like that?

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

#360

Post by GeneralMayhem »

winternett wrote: post #320
GeneralMayhem wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... that's not a great analogy. The equivalent of your story would be if you clicked a link for Morton's on the Google SERP and it actually redirected you to Shelly's. What Google is doing is more like taking your destination, then asking "hey, you might like this other steakhouse more, want to give that a try instead?" before driving. Potentially annoying if the answer is always no, but... the answer isn't always…

A point to add though that highlights the issue is that for many many years prior, Google had gotten users used to the ideal that search results were fair and not influenced by payments under the table though. The injustice is turning a free and fair situation into one of deception and payola that will likely get much worse because rising consumer cost is the end result.

Search isn't influenced by payments, ads are. It's not that hard to understand. If the idea of ads offends you that much, the organic results are a couple inches down.
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