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Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

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Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#61

Post by gorbachev »

asah wrote: post #3

Before HN jumps all over this, I worked at Google and other ads and search companies... and this is technically true (in selected cases) ! There are certain categories of websites and search results pages, where ads actually improve user experience, measured by nearly any metric you want to pick, from user perception to CTR/conversion, etc. There's lots of random categories, but the obvious ones are commercial/produc…

Yes, but Google puts ads on every search result, even the ones for which the context makes it pretty clear ads would be detrimental to the user.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#62

Post by asah »

timeon wrote: post #15
asah wrote: post #3

Before HN jumps all over this, I worked at Google and other ads and search companies... and this is technically true (in selected cases) ! There are certain categories of websites and search results pages, where ads actually improve user experience, measured by nearly any metric you want to pick, from user perception to CTR/conversion, etc. There's lots of random categories, but the obvious ones are commercial/produc…

> And this isn't new: over history, there've been magazines and other media where the ads dominated the content Was it better user experience than if it was not dominated by ads?

Nobody was forced to buy Computer Shopper... people bought it for the ads.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#63

Post by jameshart »

sayrer wrote: post #30
TheChaplain wrote: post #2

I believe this quote explains the situation well; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

I don’t think Rolling Stone is a great example - the conceit of a music magazine is that its content is curated by tastemakers untainted by the marketing machinery of the industry they’re reviewing. The content is all promoting acts and albums and musicians who are the products of music labels, but it’s not ‘advertising’.

But ‘Computer Shopper’ magazine on the other hand was half magazine, half catalog. The ads are the point.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#64

Post by asah »

jrockway wrote: post #38
wlesieutre wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile the alternative is mobile apps and an icon on your homescreen, an effect that makes Apple and Google rich for taking a % of the revenue from those apps, and one of the largest job programs ever for software engineers. Not to mention that you suffer the same problem in the App Store when you go searching for the Faceboook app. They have to bid for ads against competitors that want to show up when users try…

Something I think about a lot is what the world would look like without advertising, i.e., you'd have to make every decision on its merits, and never rely on bought opinions. Like imagine you walk into a grocery store, and every shelf is lined with plain cardboard boxes with the name of the product on it ("chocolate-covered breakfast cereal") and a nutrition label. You walk in and there is nothing other than the meri…

interesting points.

one comment: growing up, we have Pathmark groceries, with the "generic" aisle of all (literally) white labeled products. It was depressing and uninspiring.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#65

Post by throwaway14356 »

JellyBeanThief wrote: post #51
sayrer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be true in some situations. If you think of magazines, it would be a disappointment for Rolling Stone to contain no ads. Same for camera magazines. News content really doesn't benefit, though. Just clickbait stuff.

What I want is for ads to be sequestered in places for people who are actually looking to solve something. Just take all the ads in the camera magazine and put them at the end, neatly categorized. If I'm interested in buying a new lens, then I'll flip to the lens category. If I'm not interested in buying a new lens, I won't. "But what about things you didn't know you wanted?" I can't want something I don't know about…

things you didn't know exist, if worthy, should have an article

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#66

Post by graypegg »

alwaysrunning wrote: post #49

Honestly, who here sees ads? My son owns a marketing firm and anytime I see his display it's shocking to me how different it looks than mine.

I worked a short while at Mindgeek (The pornhub holding company) and it was the first time I had every faced the internet without adblockers in a very long time. (Most of the work I was doing involved ads themselves.)

Definitely was not "great" but also not the worst thing. Pretty quickly I regained whatever sky-scraper ad-blindness I had in the early 2000s.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#67

Post by throwaway14356 »

asah wrote: post #3

Before HN jumps all over this, I worked at Google and other ads and search companies... and this is technically true (in selected cases) ! There are certain categories of websites and search results pages, where ads actually improve user experience, measured by nearly any metric you want to pick, from user perception to CTR/conversion, etc. There's lots of random categories, but the obvious ones are commercial/produc…

> Thanks for listening to my TED talk, let the downvoting begin!

that you didn't eat some of the babies doesn't make it okay?

my favorite shops have such tiny margins they couldn't afford buying ad slots. If they organically took the top of the search it wouldn't be very interesting to advertise the same only more expensieve along side of it?

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#68

Post by graypegg »

RankingMember wrote: post #19
valine wrote: post #8

It’s disappointing to see google lacking basic self awareness like this. Ten years ago they seemed highly competent and nearly unstoppable.

I wonder if bringing Larry and Sergey back into day-to-day leadership roles would help. They've been out of the day-to-day so long I wonder how long the ramp-up time would be, though.

I don't know the specifics, but I can only imagine Google is too big to have a single "thought leader" at this point. The many layers of middle management that are already implemented are probably the source of a lot of this. It is shocking to hear the higher ups saying this stuff, but I don't think swapping them out would change much.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#69

Post by dgrin91 »

alwaysrunning wrote: post #49

Honestly, who here sees ads? My son owns a marketing firm and anytime I see his display it's shocking to me how different it looks than mine.

> Honestly, who here sees ads?

Your problem is selection bias. Here is HN, a group of mostly tech-oriented people who all have adblockers. The majority of people actually _don't_ have ad blockers, especially the older crowd.

Re: Google ad exec: “it is a worse user experience to not have ads on the page”

#70

Post by lukev »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #20
valine wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fill the search results with enough SEO garbage eventually ads will look better by comparison. If ads are making your user experience better you have a serious problem.

Okay, sure, build a better search engine that functions and is better without ads. Easier said than done. The internet is 99.99% scams and trash. It's easier said than done to find the signal in the noise. Some times - willing to pay (and being vetted not to be a scam) is a good indication of signal. Unfortunately, Google could do a little better on vetting their ad partners. Too often these days, ads are scams.

> The internet is 99.99% scams and trash.

Mostly because of Google.

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