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> When a random person searches for a company, it's probably > 100:1 odds that they're interested in the company's product, not in a job at the company Really

by Udik 11y ago

> When a random person searches for a company, it's probably > 100:1 odds that they're interested in the company's product, not in a job at the company Really? There are companies that have very few customers that pay lots of money for very specific machinery or services. Customers which might be banks, large businesses or large manufacturing companies. How many among the visitors of their websites are the decision makers that are evaluating their products and those of the competition in view of a purchase? You say 99%.I say 1 out of 1000.

nostrademons 11y ago
There are, but again, we're talking in averages, and we're looking only at transactions where Google makes money. If a VP at a bank buys some financial software for $10M, it's great for the vendor, but Google still only makes about $10-20. If an engineer at the bank searches for software to make their job easier and clicks on the link, Google still makes that $10-20, but no sale happens (immediately). The financial software vendor has folded the costs of those clicks by non-decision makers into the lead-gen cost of their product, and I would bet that there are 100x more clicks from engineers, managers, and salespeople interested in the product than there are from VP decision makers (or people interested in working at that firm, for that matter).
manigandham 11y ago
And that 1 out of a 1000 person might buy a product/service worth millions which makes the marketing and acquisition costs worth it. You're looking at this through personal assumptions and ignoring all the data when this entire industry is completely data-driven and calculated in decisions.
- Udik 11y ago
  Of course. I'm not saying that the advertisers are wasting their money. I'm saying that it seems that both the advertisers and the ads network could have made more money with a better targeting. At least in my case, they've wasted the cost of the impression and the potential gain from showing a more relevant ad in that space. And this is probably happening millions of times a day.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    It is, but the cost of better targeting gets exponential more expensive. Also people complain about targeting and tracking and delete cookies so there's that whole situation (which really only hurts them by giving them worse ads).
    - Udik 11y ago
      > It is, but the cost of better targeting gets exponential more expensive. Does it? I don't see why. It's not like you have to manually go through the data.
      - manigandham 11y ago
        What magic data is there? As I said, there are privacy concerns which are already limiting the quality/quantity of data available and leading to more generic ads. Outside of that, it takes ever more data and the required storage, processing and algorithms to derive exactly what your intent is. You can look at any algorithm problem and see the decreasing returns (netflix recommendations are a good example). This industry is not full of idiots, there are thousands of data scientists and researchers working on this. If it was that easy, it would already be done.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
Udik 11y ago
Funny how this comment, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, was downvoted twice. No explanations of course.

by Udik 11y ago

nostrademons 11y ago

There are, but again, we're talking in averages, and we're looking only at transactions where Google makes money. If a VP at a bank buys some financial software for $10M, it's great for the vendor, but Google still only makes about $10-20. If an engineer at the bank searches for software to make their job easier and clicks on the link, Google still makes that $10-20, but no sale happens (immediately). The financial software vendor has folded the costs of those clicks by non-decision makers into the lead-gen cost of their product, and I would bet that there are 100x more clicks from engineers, managers, and salespeople interested in the product than there are from VP decision makers (or people interested in working at that firm, for that matter).

manigandham 11y ago

And that 1 out of a 1000 person might buy a product/service worth millions which makes the marketing and acquisition costs worth it. You're looking at this through personal assumptions and ignoring all the data when this entire industry is completely data-driven and calculated in decisions.

Udik 11y ago
Of course. I'm not saying that the advertisers are wasting their money. I'm saying that it seems that both the advertisers and the ads network could have made more money with a better targeting. At least in my case, they've wasted the cost of the impression and the potential gain from showing a more relevant ad in that space. And this is probably happening millions of times a day.
- manigandham 11y ago
  It is, but the cost of better targeting gets exponential more expensive. Also people complain about targeting and tracking and delete cookies so there's that whole situation (which really only hurts them by giving them worse ads).
  - Udik 11y ago
    > It is, but the cost of better targeting gets exponential more expensive. Does it? I don't see why. It's not like you have to manually go through the data.
    - manigandham 11y ago
      What magic data is there? As I said, there are privacy concerns which are already limiting the quality/quantity of data available and leading to more generic ads. Outside of that, it takes ever more data and the required storage, processing and algorithms to derive exactly what your intent is. You can look at any algorithm problem and see the decreasing returns (netflix recommendations are a good example). This industry is not full of idiots, there are thousands of data scientists and researchers working on this. If it was that easy, it would already be done.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

Udik 11y ago

Funny how this comment, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, was downvoted twice. No explanations of course.