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It could cause short-term shocks, but I feel like over the long run things would recover. If the advertisers thought they were paying $500 for 10000 clicks res

It could cause short-term shocks, but I feel like over the long run things would recover. If the advertisers thought they were paying $500 for 10000 clicks resulting in $1000 worth of visible revenue, the fact that they really only got 5000 "real" clicks resulting in the same $1000 worth of visible revenue doesn't really change the equation much. Over the long run companies spending money on advertising are going to hone in on how much they can spend compared to how much revenue they get can trace back to that advertising spend. The pay-per-click model and the current cost-per-click pricing is just an implementation detail of the current state of web advertising. Advertising still works when those stats aren't available, like in Podcasts.

cujo 9y ago
It does matter though. They don't say they want 10000 clicks in a vacuum. They pay for that many clicks because the math tells them it should be worth $1k in revenue. In reality someone is manipulating the math They should have been able to dedicate half the money for the same revenue, or the same money for double the rev, in your scenario. Put another way, the estimate is that they pay out $500 for $2k in revenue, then someone came in and dumped a bunch of bots in the way and ate away half their revenue. It's not like those empty clicks are people who just weren't compelled to buy what they were selling. They are bots intentionally disrupting commerce.
tyingq 9y ago
"Over the long run companies spending money on advertising are going to hone in on how much they can spend compared to how much revenue they get can trace back to that advertising spend." In some niches, there's an unending new supply of get-rich-quick newbies that will pay for underperforming ads. There's really no incentive for Google's AdSense team to focus on fraud in these spaces. Because the suckers just keep coming. Google profits from it, so there's little incentive to fix the glitch.

cujo 9y ago

It does matter though. They don't say they want 10000 clicks in a vacuum. They pay for that many clicks because the math tells them it should be worth $1k in revenue. In reality someone is manipulating the math They should have been able to dedicate half the money for the same revenue, or the same money for double the rev, in your scenario. Put another way, the estimate is that they pay out $500 for $2k in revenue, then someone came in and dumped a bunch of bots in the way and ate away half their revenue. It's not like those empty clicks are people who just weren't compelled to buy what they were selling. They are bots intentionally disrupting commerce.

tyingq 9y ago

"Over the long run companies spending money on advertising are going to hone in on how much they can spend compared to how much revenue they get can trace back to that advertising spend." In some niches, there's an unending new supply of get-rich-quick newbies that will pay for underperforming ads. There's really no incentive for Google's AdSense team to focus on fraud in these spaces. Because the suckers just keep coming. Google profits from it, so there's little incentive to fix the glitch.