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Media Websites Battle Faltering Ad Revenue and Traffic
- xbmcuser 11y agoThe more sad part is people posting links from outside Facebook less. I have always been against Facebook for the simple reason that it is a way to coral the Web. And it is slowly but surely happening. Yes some people will hold out for privacy or other reasons but I fear soon most will soon will move inside Facebook and no longer be accessible outside it.
- teaneedz 11y agoNews and other content will always exist beyond Facebook. The sad part is watching adtech kill more businesses as it devours its own tail.
- sergiosgc 11y agoWhat happens is that content follows the money. If we do not want content to be a puppet to advertisement, it is on us to create a different revenue stream. Advertisement is an ok answer to the financial support problem of content. However, it has a serious flaw: It caters to masses rather well, and to niches very poorly. I like to think that a direct revenue flow (from readers to writers) would create strong incentives for more niche content. Investigative journalism, independent tech reviews; stuff that is desperately needed but not consumed by the masses. Is is on us, techies. We can go down the ad-blocking arms race or we can go down the new business models race. One is destructive, the other is constructive.
- Johnny_Brahms 11y agoI am against facebook because I don't think we should entrust a company that earns money by knowing everything about it's users with a substantial share of human to human communications. I think you have to be a special kind of crazy not to consider that a problem.
- kidcoach 11y agoMore of a normal kind of crazy. Aunt peggy kind of crazy.
- TaylorGood 11y agoYes, but, it's ultimately a free tool to keep in touch with acquaintances at the very least. One that is opted-into.. Cost of Admission > Fax Era (less connected)
- Johnny_Brahms 11y agoI wouldn't say it's free. It is just less obvious what you pay.
- majewsky 11y agoYes, and people are notoriously bad at grasping hidden costs of a good or service.
- partiallypro 11y ago"I am against facebook because I don't think we should entrust a company that earns money by knowing everything about it's users" I would argue that Facebook has less personal data than Google. Facebook has the data you might want public...Google has your worst secrets.
- neogodless 11y agoI feel like there's no way they aren't working together and sharing that information. I view mattresses on Amazon, and Facebook shows me mattress ads a few minutes later. I post a link on Facebook, and everywhere I go, I see ads related to that link.
- partiallypro 11y agoProbably re-targeting pixels
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jarjoura 11y agoSorry but how is sharing a link to my followers on Twitter, or my close friends on Facebook different from sharing a link on Hacker News? Original content will always want to be free to make as much money as it can. NYTimes for example will publish a URL for sharing, but also have an Apple News exclusive URI that forces you in that app sandbox. One thing I love about Facebook sharing is the commentary and comments below the content.
- magicalist 11y agoBad call on the HN title. The actual quote is > "In the first quarter of 2016, 85 cents of every new dollar spent in online advertising will go to Google or Facebook, said Brian Nowak, a Morgan Stanley analyst." emphasis on new dollar, and in context appears to refer to their advertising networks, not the companies themselves.
- Animats 11y agoRight. That's one of those vague numbers; what's a "new dollar"? Increased advertising spend over last year? Here are somewhat harder numbers, from the Internet Advertising Bureau.[1] 72% of ad spend goes to the top 10 players. The IAB doesn't break that down further. Pew does, but their data is a year behind.[2] Google and Facebook haven't quite curb-stomped everybody else yet. Together, they have maybe half the online ad market. The whole online advertising ecosystem, with supply side platforms, demand side platforms, auctions, and all that is becoming irrelevant. Google and Facebook sell direct and don't play in those systems. [1] http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IAB_Internet_Advertising_Revenue_Report_HY_2015.pdf http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/IAB_Internet_A... [2] http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/digital-news-revenue-fact-sheet/ http://www.journalism.org/2015/04/29/digital-news-revenue-fa...
- dang 11y agoWe've changed the title from "85 cents of every $1 spent in online advertising goes to Google or Facebook" to that of the article. Submitters: it's against the HN guidelines to pick one detail from an article and make that the title. That's a form of editorializing. Please use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait. If you wish to say which detail you find important, do so by commenting in the thread. That way your interpretation is on the same level as everyone else's.
- kaugesaar 11y agoCould anyone explain, what's a "new dollar" in this context? Is it those $8.500 from company X that have increased their budget from $100.000 to $110.000?
- simonh 11y agoI read it as meaning new choices of where to spend the money. In other words excluding spends that have already been contractually committed, but I suppose it might mean growth in ad spending. In other words 85% of ad spend growth will go that way.
- peteretep 11y agoAnd yet I don't see a micropayments solution from either yet for when the ad-pocalypse hits.
- Buge 11y agoWell Google does have Contributor. https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
- akerro 11y agoEven more tracking in ads? Ad-companies make most money on tracking and profiling than on actual ads. I'll stay with uBlock and PB for longer probably.
- Klathmon 11y agoHow can someone implement micropayments without any sort of tracking?
- ccozan 11y agoThe same way you buy electricity from a provider, but the grid doesn't know who you are.
- Klathmon 11y agoBut the company does know who you are, they have a meter on the side of your home that measures how much electricity you use, they know your address and often your banking information... The "grid" might not (i'm not even sure what that means?), but in this case the website doesn't know who you are, the ad itself doesn't know who you are (especially because it's not shown), only the ad-network-provider knows who you are.
- random28345 11y ago> but the grid doesn't know who you are. Sure, the grid only knows where you live, if you own or rent, size of your household, when you're home or away. Heck with a bit of data mining on "smart meters", I bet you could infer the energy usage of certain appliances such as hair dryer, curling iron, stove, etc., starting to give insight into age, gender, ethnicity, eating habits, you name it. By itself that data will only generate weak correlations, but I'd certain that energy companies are finding buyers for that data who could match it with your credit report, background check, etc. Face it, the only thing protecting your anonymity is your lack of notoriety.
- surferbayarea 11y agoThe advertising market needs to be made similar to the stock exchange. Current situation is similar to the NYSE asking for a 85% commission on every stock transaction. The middlemen need to be removed...An advertiser should have direct access to the relevant consumer audience with a non-commercial facilitator.
- mrweasel 11y agoIs that honestly a surprise to anyone at this point? Sure Facebook I might not fully understand, but at least it's highly targeted, even if it may not generate revenue for the advertiser. Most of the companies buying ads are in the business of sell "actual products", which means that you need the catch the buyer when their in a buying mood. There's little point in trying to peddle my goods on Mashable, people simply aren't in the right mindset at that point. Google on the other hand, that's where people go to find the sellers, reviews and specifications. It makes a ton more sense to do your advertising in that setting. Sure ad blockers might be hurting the revenue of online media companies, but that only because they've taken ads to such a ridicules extreme. It made no sense to try to sell me a TV and lure me into online poker when I'm reading a news article. It just contributed to my desire to kill of those ads.
- azazqadir 11y agoIn some cases, Facebook advertising has proven to be quite profitable. I know some Pakistanis who have created pages to sell imported jewelries and other similar stuff to Pakistani Facebook users. They run FB ad campaigns to promote their products. Now, Pakistani market is lot different than US and other countries. If its cheap and free delivery, people will buy it.
- zappo2938 11y agoI think Facebook advertising is very effective. First, it is very targeted. Yes, Zuck lets us use any information a person has on their profile to target them. Oh, you work at the media company with 900 employees that I want to work for, let me target each person who works there with an ad. They didn't think that was funny or the comment I made when they made it clear they weren't interested about how, although the number of women working at the company is equal to the number of men, the men working their tended to be much older meaning there was probably a serious wage gap. (I'm still looking for a job BTW). To be fair I mentioned that it might not be their fault. It is possible that instead of a bunch of young women between the ages of 18 and 35 being hired at the company 10 or 15 years ago, young men were being hired who are now in management. Whereas the increase in young women at the company will lead to more women being in management in the next 15 years than men. (I didn't really say that to them, but I thought it.) [1] Facebook wants advertisers to show relevant ads to people so people with ads that are shared, interacted with, and commented on, get a discount on the price of that ad. Facebook would love it if the ads on peoples' profiles were higher quality than friends' posts. A big reason people purchase GQ and Vogue magazines is for the ads not just the editorial content. Also, taking the time to target people who really care about a product or service makes it much cheaper to sell ads on Facebook. If I wanted to promote a new Japanese restaurant in a 20 mile radius from the restaurant, I'd create an audience of people who liked the local Japanese garden. Who else cares about that demographic? Nobody. So it's cheap. I would not be surprised if one day people go to Facebook for the ads like they do fashion magazines to find out all the new products and services that they might be interested in to help them at work, at home, or at play. [1] http://i.imgur.com/bD8IpBV.png http://i.imgur.com/bD8IpBV.png
- logicallee 11y agoIn the first paragraph, ending: >But in recent weeks, what had been a simmering worry among publishers has turned into borderline panic. the words "into borderline panic" are a link, but to the same article. Does this mean that the author didn't write the link, but some editor added it, in this case after the article was published? (And accidentally added a link pointing to it.) Or, how can this happen? I had always thought that the NYTimes authors added their own links as part of their writing style. It would be interesting if instead this were a survival tactic exposed at the top of this story...
- kapauldo 11y agoAnd 50% of it is accidental clicks on mobile devices.
- fulldecent 11y agoEvery dollar I spend with Google is painful because it is defending a brand name or something else that I already rank first for. Spending with Facebook is negative ROI for me. I get much better results creating fake users and integrating into networks of people to send occasional adverts.
- roymurdock 11y agoThe next generation of native advertising: we no longer have spambots, we have real people as submarines as a service.
- sgift 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill I don't see the difference.
- pimlottc 11y agoIs this so different than traditional advertising? It's not like the reason Coca-Cola keeps spending money is because no one knows about their product.
- kelukelugames 11y agoCan you describe the process for fake users? Is it scalable?
- xchip 11y agoThe 15 remaining cents I guess are all the porn ads..
- jussij 11y agoI don't know if things have improved. But 10 years ago I spent $800-00 over six months on Google click adds that seemed to do nothing but give $800-00 to Google. To better understand where the money went I looked at my website logs any found a lot of users spending less than a second on the site.
- fweespee_ch 11y agoFwiw, at $DayJob we spend a substantial amount of money on Google ads and get reliable return of ~5% greater than the ad spend [ignoring repeat business]. I think it may depend on the market you are in.
- CaptSpify 11y agoSorry, but what does "$800-00" mean? I get $800, but what does "-00" represent?
- Kratisto 11y agoPretty sure they meant $800.00
- thejerz 11y agoIs it possible your site just wasn't that good?
- pc86 11y agoActual title: Media Websites Battle Faltering Ad Revenue and Traffic
- dang 11y agoYes. Changed from "85 cents of every $1 spent in online advertising goes to Google or Facebook". I'm not sure whether that was an earlier NYT title (they do this), but if not, the submission violated the HN guidelines by rewriting a title when it was neither linkbait nor misleading.
- impostervt 11y agoI recently tried out reddit ads and got a pretty good CTR with a CPC of $0.05, which I think is pretty good (perhaps I'm just crazy naive, I'm not a marketer). Have to find the right niche sub-reddit though.
- shahidhussain 11y agoIt's very good - limited volume though. CPCs are often efficient at low volumes with good targeting.
- pklausler 11y agoPerhaps also relevant: 2016 is an election year in the US. Anecdotally, I've been seeing lots of political ads lately. (Digression: I always click on the ads for candidates of the party that I despise.)
- thenomad 11y agoYou might not want to do that. Ad clicks cost, sometimes. But sometimes they send a positive quality signal resulting in reduced costs to run that ad in the future. (Or then again you might. Because you'll screw up their A/B testing stats. Or you might not. Because if they have half a brain they'll be running conversion testing anyway and they'll easily spot a high-CTR, low-CVR ad. Or...)
- Luyt 11y agoForbes.com detects your adblocker and will deny you access to their content. Except if you instruct your browser to use a UserAgent string like GoogleBot does: then suddenly, you are can read the articles.