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Wish I knew someone working in advertising (words not often spoken) so I could ask them but from a consumer point of view I have a suspicion that advertising is

by Paul_S 11y ago

Wish I knew someone working in advertising (words not often spoken) so I could ask them but from a consumer point of view I have a suspicion that advertising is adapting just fine and shifting even more from overt to covert advertising. My friend's gamedev company pays an ad agency to astroturf on amongst other places 4chan. I suspect now broadcasting is within the reach of anyone advertisers will take advantage of this mercilessly and you will not be able to tell it's an ad because it will be coming from the same channels that normal people use. It already made online reviews worthless by making fake ones. Now every other form of communication will be suspect. Overt advertising at least isn't immoral but this covert approach is a deception from the start. Must be horrible to know you're making the world a slightly worse place to live in.

vdnkh 11y ago
>My friend's gamedev company pays an ad agency to astroturf on amongst other places 4chan Does this actually work? Shills are pretty obvious on 4Chan due their usual lack of "culture fit" and tendency to call anyone praising a videogame a shill.
- Paul_S 11y ago
  I don't know if it works. At least they believe it does, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. It's just part of the bigger social media package so I don't know if it's even possible to evaluate it individually. How would they track it? I think it's all madness and it must be a soul crushing job to do the menial work on this completely aside any moral judgements.
shostack 11y ago
Hi there, I manage digital media for a living and have for some time. I don't do astroturfing or anything like that. Primarily paid search/social/display. Short answer is it works, and any advertiser with decent analytics should be able to see that plain as day. Longer answer is that as more data becomes available around cross-channel attribution, the question of incremental effectiveness, and which channel/placement/ad gets what % of credit becomes the murkier, more difficult question to answer. For a glimpse of what I mean, do some googling on cross-channel attribution. Google Analytics has some great free tools they make available, but it is by far a perfect solution. The further out from the purchase step a given touch point is (like a display ad that is driving awareness), the harder it is to attribute revenue to and determine the incremental lift of. Certain channels like display and social typically play a heavier role at the top of the funnel vs. search and email that are more prevalent at the middle and bottom of the funnel. Historically digital media focused on last-click attribution, but that view is fast changing since it discounts top of funnel efforts more than it should, and you need those to fill the lower parts of the funnel. Happy to answer other questions you might have. Not all of us in the space are scammy/shady people looking to fleece everyone we can online.

by Paul_S 11y ago

vdnkh 11y ago

>My friend's gamedev company pays an ad agency to astroturf on amongst other places 4chan Does this actually work? Shills are pretty obvious on 4Chan due their usual lack of "culture fit" and tendency to call anyone praising a videogame a shill.

Paul_S 11y ago
I don't know if it works. At least they believe it does, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. It's just part of the bigger social media package so I don't know if it's even possible to evaluate it individually. How would they track it? I think it's all madness and it must be a soul crushing job to do the menial work on this completely aside any moral judgements.

shostack 11y ago

Hi there, I manage digital media for a living and have for some time. I don't do astroturfing or anything like that. Primarily paid search/social/display. Short answer is it works, and any advertiser with decent analytics should be able to see that plain as day. Longer answer is that as more data becomes available around cross-channel attribution, the question of incremental effectiveness, and which channel/placement/ad gets what % of credit becomes the murkier, more difficult question to answer. For a glimpse of what I mean, do some googling on cross-channel attribution. Google Analytics has some great free tools they make available, but it is by far a perfect solution. The further out from the purchase step a given touch point is (like a display ad that is driving awareness), the harder it is to attribute revenue to and determine the incremental lift of. Certain channels like display and social typically play a heavier role at the top of the funnel vs. search and email that are more prevalent at the middle and bottom of the funnel. Historically digital media focused on last-click attribution, but that view is fast changing since it discounts top of funnel efforts more than it should, and you need those to fill the lower parts of the funnel. Happy to answer other questions you might have. Not all of us in the space are scammy/shady people looking to fleece everyone we can online.