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How can we know if paid search advertising works?

causalinf.substack.com

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

#91

Post by kbos87 »

dazc wrote: post #83
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you entire argument is "I refuse to actualy engage with any of the presented facts and claims, big and rich institutions can't be wrong". The author could have presented a cure for cancer and you woild have dismissed him just the same. Before 2008 banks were handing multiple mortgages to strippers. Does that mean that major banks with entire departments filled with analysts running their risk analysis and loans ef…

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Counterpoint - most of the arguments against paid acquisition from people who don’t have direct experience are a classic Dunning-Kruger example.

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

#92

Post by ben-schaaf »

patmcc wrote: post #85
chii wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if competitors bidding on your brand should be construed as trade mark violations - after all, if a user searches a brand and a competitor's site or product is shown as part of advertising, then aren't they making use of your brand to confuse the consumer (a classic trade mark violation)? The only problem is that the user isn't "seeing" the brand and confusing it, but instead is searching the brand and the s…

Is it actually confusing anyone? If I search for Pepsi and some of the ads are for Coke or Dr Pepper, that seems fine to me. If it's counterfeit Pepsi or something that's clearly a different case, but if someone searches "ebay mittens" I don't think it's ridiculous to allow a mitten store to have an ad that says "we sell mittens too!".

The worse I've seen has been malicious malware spreading with an exact copy of the company site. There's also morally/legally dubious combative advertising eg: "Better than X" when searching for X.

Best part of course is that Google has been constantly making it less clear whether something is an ad, so the tricking is really primarily done by Google themselves. The advertising is really just paying to be the first search result.

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

#93

Post by akcreek »

patmcc wrote: post #85
chii wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder if competitors bidding on your brand should be construed as trade mark violations - after all, if a user searches a brand and a competitor's site or product is shown as part of advertising, then aren't they making use of your brand to confuse the consumer (a classic trade mark violation)? The only problem is that the user isn't "seeing" the brand and confusing it, but instead is searching the brand and the s…

Is it actually confusing anyone? If I search for Pepsi and some of the ads are for Coke or Dr Pepper, that seems fine to me. If it's counterfeit Pepsi or something that's clearly a different case, but if someone searches "ebay mittens" I don't think it's ridiculous to allow a mitten store to have an ad that says "we sell mittens too!".

It definitely confuses our customers. We fairly regularly receive unpleasant tickets asking where their order is. Once we dig in we often find they did not order with us, but with a competitor who they thought was us.

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

#94

Post by Terry_Roll »

Have advertised on adwords in the past, never got any sales, just burned through money so dont use it any more. Done fax mailshots, postal mailshots, all at various expense, not one sale. Had one sale from Yellow Pages but that also caused its own problems, so dont bother now.

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

#95

Post by skilled »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #39
skilled wrote: post #22

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.

You're complaining about them pre-filling your email when you have an account? How is it a dark pattern? It's convenient. It's not like they're automatically signing you up to the publication.

What account? I do not have a Substack account. I might have subscribed to someone in the past who is a Substack customer. Does that give them the right to automatically fetch my email address for all of their other customers, too?

It's creepy.

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

#96

Post by tomcam »

skilled wrote: post #22

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.

Could it be your browser is filling it in?

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

#97

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

nextaccountic wrote: post #77
tempestn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting idea. I'd certainly like to see that case made.

This was shared in another comment in the thread: https://veritasbusinesslaw.com/trademark-and-google-adwords/ > Google has been sued frequently for trademark infringement because it allows advertisers to purchase trademarked names for use in AdWords by competitors. > Google has never lost one of these cases. > Google derives 97% of its revenue from advertising, annual revenue that was over $109 billion as of 2017. >…

"> Google has never lost one of these cases."

Perhaps they settled every single case. Show us one that went to trial.

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

#98

Post by dazc »

kbos87 wrote: post #91
dazc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Counterpoint - most of the arguments against paid acquisition from people who don’t have direct experience are a classic Dunning-Kruger example.

I find some people will accept there are some situations where paid acquisition results in cannibalisation of acquisition they were going to get anyway. Conversely, there will be examples that prove paid acquisition is the best money you could ever spend.

Then there are people who dismiss everyone as not knowing what they are talking about.

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

#99

Post by toto444 »

somedude895 wrote: post #88
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…

> the majority of brands are simply paying protection money Exactly this. Google should be forced to not allow bidding on other companies‘ brand kw.

That would mean you can just buy 'hotelsincornwall.com' and no one will be allowed to bid for 'hotels in corwnwall'. You are now facing a different problem.

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

#100

Post by withinboredom »

toto444 wrote: post #99
somedude895 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the majority of brands are simply paying protection money Exactly this. Google should be forced to not allow bidding on other companies‘ brand kw.

That would mean you can just buy 'hotelsincornwall.com' and no one will be allowed to bid for 'hotels in corwnwall'. You are now facing a different problem.

I don’t think you’d get a trademark for that name…
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