5 ms·

Coowner of one the larger premium ad exchanges here. I see a lot of folks concerned about clickbait. I genuinely think this concern is overblown. Clickbait art

by malchow 10y ago

Coowner of one the larger premium ad exchanges here. I see a lot of folks concerned about clickbait. I genuinely think this concern is overblown. Clickbait articles service people who want them: people who are looking for quick payoff content. And that's most people. US Weekly, People Magazine –– this is all clickbait. Even programs like NBC's Today Show and Tonight Show: dashed-off, quick-hit, prefab bits––each of which is probably actually an ad, for something. And in between those ads, there are––wait for it––more ads. Most of media is clickbait and has been for a very long time. Even for Hacker News readers, reading solely The Economist can get boring after a while. (A real short while, if you ask me.) There's nothing wrong with fun.[1] I see some people here concerned that clickbait sites are wasting advertisers' dollars, but that isn't true, either. Advertisers do not purchase ads on websites. They purchase audiences. BMW wants BMW intenders, and doesn't (within a reasonable bound) care in which app or on which site it can locate them. BMW buyers don't watch exploding watermelons? Nonsense! That's why adtech exists––because finding the right people is vastly more important than the distinct complexion of the publication itself. [2] [1] http://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ http://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ [2] Of course, there are good and bad ways to find the right people. I admit that readily.

davemel37 10y ago
What about the rampant fraud, bots and arbitrage between exchanges that do nothing to provide real value and that exchanges have no incentive to correct and according to some prominent advertisers are actually happy about all the bots and fraud? As someone paying for advertising space, why do I need to spend time and money just figuring out which of your placements are bot traffic to exclude them, and which of your publishers are just arbitraging taboola's traffic?
- malchow 10y ago
  Arbitrageurs bother me a lot. You're certainly about that. Unfortunately, a lot of bad behavior in ads is desired by every piece of the chain: adtech companies, exchanges, publishers, advertisers, and consumers who do not want to pay for entertainment. App install ads are one example of this. Relatively bad for consumers but good for every other link in the chain. Some of the largest blue-chip companies you've heard of buy these things.
  - davemel37 10y ago
    Of course Arbitrage bothers you a lot, it means that you aren't capturing the full value of the impressions you sell/broker. Bad behavior is not desired by performance advertisers. The blue chip advertisers you refer too are getting wined and dined by agencies and ad tech companies swindling them into believing it's impossible to quantify emotion and storytelling and brand building. After all, it's not their money, it's their shareholders money. Find me one media buyer, where its actually his own money that doesn't demand accountability. What kills me is that letting this bad behavior thrive is short sighted. It's great for keeping VCs happy about growth, but at the end of the day, it devalues all your other high value inventory and forces advertisers to underwrite the risk in their bidding. It's really bad for business long term...but as long as VCs fund publishers and ad tech companies their incentive is only short term growth and bots and fraud help those numbers. Someone, Somewhere needs to force accountability on every piece of the chain, or we'll continue down this path where 99% of advertising isn't working.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      The idea that media purchasers don't track return on ad spend is utterly disconnected from any reality in the adtech industry. Here's what actually happens: a DSP is given a $30-$50k trial buy from either a company or their agency. While it's certainly true that a dsp is expected to spend the entire budget, the returns on that budget are carefully tracked. If you don't perform, you get $0 next quarter. If you do perform, you call the buyer and demand 2x the budget next quarter where the entire justification is the cost-per-[conversion, click, etc] that you delivered.
      - davemel37 10y ago
        You can make data tell any story you want with enough creativity. They use ridiculous attribution modeling to justify all sorts of ROI that doesnt really exist. They aren't actually truly measuring impact, they are justifying an expense where there are no ramifications if their modeling doesn't reflect reality. I worked for a company that lived and died by paid media. If something really didn't work, people lost their jobs. Without that level of accountability...it is just a bunch of BS people sell themselves to justify their decisions and/or make themselves look good. You and I both know that ad tech spin data in all sorts of ways to make them look good. I mean, do you really think a below the fold, unseen ad impression that was delivered to someone who bought 3 weeks later should get any credit for that sale? Do the exchanges report on view through conversions? Of course they do... Even, an above the fold impression, that was seen by a human being, is still 90% of the time ignored by ad blindness, but if that guy buys 29 days later, they'll still call it ROI. Let's not pretend there is true accountability in digital media today. We both know thats just not true. Edit: I thought I was replying to someone else and said "your exchange and corrected it to the exchanges."
- x0x0 10y ago
  If you buy ads on adx / high quality networks, it certainly minimizes the pain. That plus a little human review of top demand partners and you'll be ok. If you want to go after every scrap of traffic and chase bottom tier ad networks, you get what you get. And from the perspective of an ad buyer, the fraud gets priced into what they pay anyway.
  - davemel37 10y ago
    > the fraud gets priced into what they pay anyway. Does unsustainable medical costs worry you? Because all they did was price in the malpractice insurance and fraud. It's just not good enough to say, its ok to pay for fraud because we dont care to fight it. There is very real opportunity cost for every dollar going to all the stakeholders in the advertising chain.
luso_brazilian 10y ago
You are right and, much like in the case of the War on Drugs, the solution to the perceived problem (people's desire for something addictive and "suboptimal") cannot be only at the supply side. Whenever there is an unsatisfied demand there is a potential for profit and the niche gets promptly occupied by entrepreneurs. However we could strive to do something much better. The Internet as a whole and the www in particular were born with the goal of being a redundant, indestructible media for communication between distant parts of the globe and to guarantee the exchange of information and knowledge even in the event of a big part of mankind getting obliterated by a nuclear war. It is a miracle that these characters, being typed on a smartphone, are traveling the whole globe wirelessly, via copper cables, optical fibers and reaching all these good people reading it right now. We (mankind as a whole, technicians and builders in particular) should not rationalize our behaviour as something unavoidable. There is profit to be made helping people get their fix (of cheap information, misleading bits and other inanities), I'm a 100% ok with that but keeping in our thoughts that we could also be doing something much better and greater with this miracle we created and received from our elders.

by malchow 10y ago

davemel37 10y ago

What about the rampant fraud, bots and arbitrage between exchanges that do nothing to provide real value and that exchanges have no incentive to correct and according to some prominent advertisers are actually happy about all the bots and fraud? As someone paying for advertising space, why do I need to spend time and money just figuring out which of your placements are bot traffic to exclude them, and which of your publishers are just arbitraging taboola's traffic?

malchow 10y ago
Arbitrageurs bother me a lot. You're certainly about that. Unfortunately, a lot of bad behavior in ads is desired by every piece of the chain: adtech companies, exchanges, publishers, advertisers, and consumers who do not want to pay for entertainment. App install ads are one example of this. Relatively bad for consumers but good for every other link in the chain. Some of the largest blue-chip companies you've heard of buy these things.
- davemel37 10y ago
  Of course Arbitrage bothers you a lot, it means that you aren't capturing the full value of the impressions you sell/broker. Bad behavior is not desired by performance advertisers. The blue chip advertisers you refer too are getting wined and dined by agencies and ad tech companies swindling them into believing it's impossible to quantify emotion and storytelling and brand building. After all, it's not their money, it's their shareholders money. Find me one media buyer, where its actually his own money that doesn't demand accountability. What kills me is that letting this bad behavior thrive is short sighted. It's great for keeping VCs happy about growth, but at the end of the day, it devalues all your other high value inventory and forces advertisers to underwrite the risk in their bidding. It's really bad for business long term...but as long as VCs fund publishers and ad tech companies their incentive is only short term growth and bots and fraud help those numbers. Someone, Somewhere needs to force accountability on every piece of the chain, or we'll continue down this path where 99% of advertising isn't working.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    The idea that media purchasers don't track return on ad spend is utterly disconnected from any reality in the adtech industry. Here's what actually happens: a DSP is given a $30-$50k trial buy from either a company or their agency. While it's certainly true that a dsp is expected to spend the entire budget, the returns on that budget are carefully tracked. If you don't perform, you get $0 next quarter. If you do perform, you call the buyer and demand 2x the budget next quarter where the entire justification is the cost-per-[conversion, click, etc] that you delivered.
    - davemel37 10y ago
      You can make data tell any story you want with enough creativity. They use ridiculous attribution modeling to justify all sorts of ROI that doesnt really exist. They aren't actually truly measuring impact, they are justifying an expense where there are no ramifications if their modeling doesn't reflect reality. I worked for a company that lived and died by paid media. If something really didn't work, people lost their jobs. Without that level of accountability...it is just a bunch of BS people sell themselves to justify their decisions and/or make themselves look good. You and I both know that ad tech spin data in all sorts of ways to make them look good. I mean, do you really think a below the fold, unseen ad impression that was delivered to someone who bought 3 weeks later should get any credit for that sale? Do the exchanges report on view through conversions? Of course they do... Even, an above the fold impression, that was seen by a human being, is still 90% of the time ignored by ad blindness, but if that guy buys 29 days later, they'll still call it ROI. Let's not pretend there is true accountability in digital media today. We both know thats just not true. Edit: I thought I was replying to someone else and said "your exchange and corrected it to the exchanges."
x0x0 10y ago
If you buy ads on adx / high quality networks, it certainly minimizes the pain. That plus a little human review of top demand partners and you'll be ok. If you want to go after every scrap of traffic and chase bottom tier ad networks, you get what you get. And from the perspective of an ad buyer, the fraud gets priced into what they pay anyway.
- davemel37 10y ago
  > the fraud gets priced into what they pay anyway. Does unsustainable medical costs worry you? Because all they did was price in the malpractice insurance and fraud. It's just not good enough to say, its ok to pay for fraud because we dont care to fight it. There is very real opportunity cost for every dollar going to all the stakeholders in the advertising chain.

luso_brazilian 10y ago

You are right and, much like in the case of the War on Drugs, the solution to the perceived problem (people's desire for something addictive and "suboptimal") cannot be only at the supply side. Whenever there is an unsatisfied demand there is a potential for profit and the niche gets promptly occupied by entrepreneurs. However we could strive to do something much better. The Internet as a whole and the www in particular were born with the goal of being a redundant, indestructible media for communication between distant parts of the globe and to guarantee the exchange of information and knowledge even in the event of a big part of mankind getting obliterated by a nuclear war. It is a miracle that these characters, being typed on a smartphone, are traveling the whole globe wirelessly, via copper cables, optical fibers and reaching all these good people reading it right now. We (mankind as a whole, technicians and builders in particular) should not rationalize our behaviour as something unavoidable. There is profit to be made helping people get their fix (of cheap information, misleading bits and other inanities), I'm a 100% ok with that but keeping in our thoughts that we could also be doing something much better and greater with this miracle we created and received from our elders.