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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?

#361

Post by lmm »

sokoloff wrote: post #280
lmm wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it’s $39.99 on W-S.com, I definitely want to see the place that’s willing to sell the same pan for $34.99, the EBay listing for $32.50, and the one selling a competing similar one for $29.99 even if those sites don’t have the organic search SEO juice to land in the top 10. But why would those sites not have the "organic search SEO juice"? If those sites are actually good places to buy that kind of thing, a good…

I think it's fairly clear that Amazon and Ebay would show up as the top organic results. What wouldn't show up is lmm-cookware.com, launched early October 2021, who is trying to establish themselves as a new destination for cooking enthusiasts. That domain is new, the business is new, no Google reviews, but they've got the pan in stock, are willing to sell it for $30 shipped, and have an advertising budget to reach c…

> I think it's fairly clear that Amazon and Ebay would show up as the top organic results.

> What wouldn't show up is lmm-cookware.com, launched early October 2021, who is trying to establish themselves as a new destination for cooking enthusiasts.

If a new site is what users are probably looking for, then it should be top of the organic results. Google and other search engines already use signals like when the site was updated, whether it has a social media "buzz", or what price it's selling something at. It's highly unlikely that spending advertising money is a good signal; yes, promising new companies do spend advertising money, but so do established companies and out-and-out scammers.

Helping the user discover new sites is maybe part of what a search engine should be doing. But mixing ads into the search results is too intrusive and anti-user a way to achieve that (if it even does). Maybe there's a time and a place for advertising, but it should be clearly separated from organic results; Google used to be good at that (indeed they were famous for having advertising that was less intrusive than their competitors), but they've been getting steadily worse.

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

#362

Post by smsm42 »

tehjoker wrote: post #351
smsm42 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but there are no shortage of top level generals and intelligence people that identify with Democrat agenda, now that democrats finally gave up on things like freedom of speech, privacy, individual liberty and such.

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

#363

Post by bborud »

rchaud wrote: post #348
bborud wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on several web search engines in the 2000s. During that time I ended up next to someone who was in the SEO business a handful of times at dinners or meetings. When they explained what they were doing to me I kept thinking "this kind of explains how belief systems and religions are formed". You would have these very complete theories of how search engine ranking worked - completely disconnected from reality a…

What's wrong with saying someone's "done SEO" if everyone at the table has the context for what that entails? Content strategy, keyword research, Search Console integration, site speed improvements, local search business profiles -- all of these contribute to SEO. It's unwieldy to talk about them all, so sometimes people can use a shorthand.

I cringe because usually they will be talking about things that come out of what can only be called superstition and they tend to think that's it. Meanwhile, I would be sitting there and knowing a great deal about exactly what goes on when whatever web search engine i was working for at the time actually did, and not being allowed to discuss any of it.

I'd always give the same advice. Don't try to outsmart the search engine, focus on quality and consistency over time. That will always reward you in the long run. Try to game the search engine and you will find yourself in a weapons race you can't sustain over time. If you find exploitable tactics to get better ranking than you deserve, sooner or later you'll probably be pushed down the ranking. And this is really important if you're successful enough to have something to lose.

Some of what people label SEO is just "make good web sites", and that indeed works. But some of it is just pure rubbish. And making a good website isn't just "doing SEO" - it is making a good website. And a lot of people don't.

Which is why I can't take people seriously when they present it as some singular task they have completed.

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

#364

Post by citizenpaul »

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.

Project didn't have a name. It was some simple dashboards with sliders that allowed you to expand and contract the scope of what was considered a market campaign sale, along with some timelines (basically gantt charts)of the products and when campaigns were run. This way the owner could look pretty pictures easily and see the data was all over the place. The website or webapp if you want to be generous was never used again after that.

No one clapped the 4 people in marketing were not happy to lose their jobs. Marketing got moved to an accounting process where the handful of advertising things that seemed to work were kept on a monthly set budget.

This was a smallish family owned rather dysfunctional company as I grew to learn. I was able to have a meeting about this directly with the owners, by a meeting I mean drinks a bar/pub till 2am. Yeah 50x was probably an exaggeration as I don't know to the penny but several times is still a lot for a useless department.(also doesn't include salaries which IT had much more of) This was pretty much the only positive thing that happened there after that it was all downhill and the owners got bored with nerds that could no longer produce outsize ROI on their usefulness and we got laid off as well.

Its actually kind of sad that someone called it "obviously false" not all of us are basement dwelling introverts afraid to challenge the status quo.

Also to the other sarcastic jerk, SaleForce calls their report page "Einstein" Insights or something close.

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

#365

Post by earthboundkid »

inthewoods wrote: post #192
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> If Google delivers users the thing they want, ads by definition have to be things users don't want. Ben Evans has a tweet something like "half of facebook devs are working out how to code the algorithm to serve you just what you want to see, the other half are working out how to get the algorithm to serve you what advertisers want you to see. " We are doing something wrong

Natural outcome of all internet advertising based models imho.

By any definition, a podcast is part of "internet advertising" but there's less conflict there. Sure, I want to hear the hosts and not the ads, but if the ad is relevant, I don't mind the interruption, and hey sometimes it's an interesting product for me. There's a tension between the content and the ads, but not a fundamental contradiction.

No, this is the outcome of all interest targeting based models. You're interested in X, and they either don't show you X (to get X to pay) or they show you Y (which you aren't interested in) because Y paid.

Whereas with demographic targeting, hey I'm in demographic X and wasn't looking for a Y now, but sure, I'll remember it for when I'm in the market for one later.

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

#366

Post by earthboundkid »

tomjen3 wrote: post #337
earthboundkid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it is that clear, actually. If I sell a car that is as good as the Ford one you searched for, but 80% of the cost, wouldn't you want that ad to appear when you searched for ford?

If the discount car is relevant, then I want the search engine to show it to me whether or not you happened to pay them for an ad. And vice versa if it's not relevant. As a user, I don't care who is getting paid by whom; I care about seeing relevant content.

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

#367

Post by earthboundkid »

computerphage wrote: post #22
earthboundkid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My "by definition" detector has fired. It says: that's not true by definition. Ads could instead also be things that users want. I do actually think you have a good point.

Yes, it's by definition because the definition is tendentious.

The definition: "If Google [meaning Google's organic results] delivers users the thing they want"

The consequence: "ads have to be things users don't want" because advertisers whose product is wanted will be included whether they pay or not.

Now, you could widen it to say, look Google is still delivering the thing users want, they just sometimes do it by organic results and sometimes do it by ads, but that's a very convoluted reading of the definition, which clearly is using Google as a stand in for "Google's organic results".

The problem with my argument isn't that it failed to be a tautology. It's that the definition is questionable, and that's the profitable angle of attack: "users don't know what they want" "there can be multiple equally good options" etc. But saying it's not by definition is just silly. The definition is the whole thing up for debate!

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

#368

Post by tekknik »

UncleMeat wrote: post #345
tekknik wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a good use of AI, if not one of the best! Let’s train an AI using real humans and have it click these links. Run the client in an P2P network so multiple can contribute to this. If ads are no longer profitable, then this should sink both the online advertising market as well as Google.

Clickfraud has been around forever and teams detecting clickfraud have also been around forever. Automation that impersonates human users is not a new idea.

Yes I’m well aware, yet AI hasn’t existed for as long as clickfraud and we both know at some point a program with enough sophistication will look like a human.

Lemme guess, you’re in ads?

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

#369

Post by Marsymars »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #214
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…

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.

This is a problem on app stores too.

If I search for my bank's app, the top results on Apple's app store are apps for competing banks, which are pretty explicitly not what I want.

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