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It might help to be clearer about what I'm getting at here. The question is not whether effective (and cost-effective) advertising exists, nor whether anyone a

It might help to be clearer about what I'm getting at here. The question is not whether effective (and cost-effective) advertising exists, nor whether anyone anywhere knows how effective their advertising is. Clearly it does and some people do. It's whether (a) buying ad impressions on a clickbait listicle (or other "bullshit" page) is cost-effective or effective at all, (b) whether writing and hosting such pages is profitable once all internal costs are properly considered, and (c) whether the advertising formats the author is complaining about are cost-optimal or even effective at all. I took the GP's claim that "it works" to mean that the answers to all three questions are an emphatic yes. I'm not so sure we know that, and I'm not so sure it's true. It seems likely that the answers might well be "almost never", "probably not", and "maybe sometimes", but factors other than profitability are at work that cause the people making the decisions to do these things even when an omniscient rational corporation would not. Improper use of statistics or poor data collection could certainly be an explanation for that, but I propose that it's more basic than that. Of course, I might also be wrong, and maybe all this bullshit does work, and works very well. That just doesn't seem like the slam dunk that was implied.

shostack 11y ago
Ok, let's get specific about listicle crap like this then (aka native advertising). The formats, popularized by such ad networks as Taboola and Outbrain gained popularity because publishers needed ways to drive additional ad revenue without adding what appeared to be more display ads. This happened to combine with the layout/design tactics of sites like Buzzfeed and HuffPo that have nailed the approach to keeping users engaged, clicking, and reading. Coincidentally, this also helped provide a source of content for sites didn't really care about drawing the line between journalism and sales. Not that more respected publications haven't been trying them--just with tighter controls over the advertisers (perhaps via direct sales only). Affiliates are all over these as expected, and if they can make it work, then that says something because affiliates operate on crap margins and have many other challenges. That said, there's almost certainly a significant amount of dollars in there from companies just testing it because you need to constantly be testing new traffic sources and approaches. In fact, I always recommend companies carve out a test budget that they can just consider wasted, and if it happens to perform or they learn something, then it usually pays off in spades. There are always those that are less savvy and tossing money away on wasted impressions. Then there are folks like myself who understand the limitations of the data, the nature of the medium, have their own audience data, etc. In many ways it parallels the differences between Wall St. and Main St. in the investing world.

shostack 11y ago

Ok, let's get specific about listicle crap like this then (aka native advertising). The formats, popularized by such ad networks as Taboola and Outbrain gained popularity because publishers needed ways to drive additional ad revenue without adding what appeared to be more display ads. This happened to combine with the layout/design tactics of sites like Buzzfeed and HuffPo that have nailed the approach to keeping users engaged, clicking, and reading. Coincidentally, this also helped provide a source of content for sites didn't really care about drawing the line between journalism and sales. Not that more respected publications haven't been trying them--just with tighter controls over the advertisers (perhaps via direct sales only). Affiliates are all over these as expected, and if they can make it work, then that says something because affiliates operate on crap margins and have many other challenges. That said, there's almost certainly a significant amount of dollars in there from companies just testing it because you need to constantly be testing new traffic sources and approaches. In fact, I always recommend companies carve out a test budget that they can just consider wasted, and if it happens to perform or they learn something, then it usually pays off in spades. There are always those that are less savvy and tossing money away on wasted impressions. Then there are folks like myself who understand the limitations of the data, the nature of the medium, have their own audience data, etc. In many ways it parallels the differences between Wall St. and Main St. in the investing world.