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I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post bumper p

by osrec 9y ago

I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post bumper profits, yet I see users becoming smarter at avoiding ads. Something doesn't quite add up, and because the validity of clicks is shrouded in mystery, it's not difficult for the platform owners to play dirty. I have had very little success with online ads for my app (https://usebx.com/app https://usebx.com/app), yet what worked really well for acquiring users was releasing a JS library for free (https://osrec.github.io/currencyFormatter.js/ https://osrec.github.io/currencyFormatter.js/)

ReverseCold 9y ago
> yet what worked really well for acquiring users was releasing a JS library for free I notice this with a lot of new OSS. E.x. Etcher is basically an ad for Resin (tired of flashing SD cards? Use resin and do it with a git push.) This is the best form of advertising because I get a free useful tool out of it.
- osrec 9y ago
  Yes absolutely. I think if you want people to give you their time and trust, you have to give them something of value in return. We're working on releasing more OSS as it really does help to bolster our business. In fact, we are even thinking of making Bx itself free, and simply taking a small cut when users receive payment for invoices raised on the platform.
godzillabrennus 9y ago
I know someone who has a company with over a billion unique visitors a year and they only bring in tens of millions a year in revenue. I have a site with over a million uniques a year and we did almost thousands a year in revenue. We are far from experts on selling ads but still it’s a tough way to monetize something small.
- elorant 9y ago
  Your examples aren't contradictory. A site with a bn uniques can have let's say 10bn impressions. With a CTR of 1%, assuming by the the high number of users that it's news related and so doesn't get that many clicks, and a CPC of $0,15 it could bring a low 8 figure income. It all depends on the kind of content. Target women and you get higher CTRs. As for the guy with the billion uniques, well he should start contacting advertisers himself. With that kind of traffic it's a crime not to.
benatkin 9y ago
To see what's most effective it might be better to watch how ad companies are selling their own services than to follow their advice. It seems like they're getting more through sales staff and content marketing and that online ads are only a small part of what gets them sales.
- chillybean 9y ago
  I like this idea. I mean, how often do you see an ad for Facebook ads or Google AdWords?! They do pop up every now and again, but are infrequent at best.
gcb0 9y ago
you don't see users getting smarter about ads. trust me. you see your close circle of acquaintances getting smarter about ads. the general population is going downhill, by all metrics we have access to. In one case, people were trying to access a (fake) bank site, which had ads. it was an ad scammer that bought mistyped domains and cloned the homepages, in an automated way. and very badly. yet it had millions of impressions, most with several PVs from same user showing that they did click around.
- packet_nerd 9y ago
  Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. At family holiday gatherings they've even started asking me to "do that thing you do" to clean up their browsers. Regular people are getting very very tired of so many obnoxious ads, and even though they don't think about it much, no one is like "hey, I have WAY to much privacy! I need to give away my data!!"
  - extra88 9y ago
    You're still the exception. I don't use an ad blocker, of my two immediate IT staff coworkers, only one does use one. However, I do do things that mean I see fewer ads, especially obnoxious ones. I spend a lot of my time in RSS feeds, not often venturing to the actual sites. When I do go to those sites, if ads are burdensome, I use Safari's Reader View and I have enabled the "always use" option for a few sites (e.g. The Verge). I'm also on sites like this and Reddit, which is quite ad-lite. I subscribe to one political news site which gives me A) full-text in RSS and B) reduced ads on the site (I occasionally go to the site because the RSS doesn't have images or embedded content).
    - packet_nerd 9y ago
      > You're still the exception Depends in the measure, I guess. Recent versions of Chrome have started blocking certain obtrusive ads by default. That's getting pretty mainstream.
exolymph 9y ago
What doesn't add up is that you and your circle are not typical users. Try talking to advertisers doing direct response on Facebook — they keep a very close eye on ROI. Brand advertising is less trackable, but advertising does and has always worked. If it didn't, businesses that didn't spend on advertising would outcompete those that do.
- osrec 9y ago
  Then why are companies like P&G cutting digital ad spend significantly? And why is this actually having a positive impact on their bottom line?
  - elorant 9y ago
    Because advertising for big companies is all about brand awareness and has little to do with sales per se. You can't follow a P&G add and end-up in a page where you can buy the damn product, 9 out of 10 times you'll end-up in an info page. It's the little guys that get the most out of digital advertising, especially e-commerce sites where they can link ads to products.
    - osrec 9y ago
      I would have agreed with you 5 years ago, but currently, I don't see the same in my business, nor in the businesses of my close friends or relatives. It could of course just be that we're in a niche where ads don't work too well!
- krrrh 9y ago
  I think that the pie of attention is still increasing which offsets the crisis, but the percentage of people running adblockers is rapidly approaching “typical user” in many countries. See the most recent PageFair report, percentage of users running adblockers increased 30% YoY: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/

by osrec 9y ago

ReverseCold 9y ago

> yet what worked really well for acquiring users was releasing a JS library for free I notice this with a lot of new OSS. E.x. Etcher is basically an ad for Resin (tired of flashing SD cards? Use resin and do it with a git push.) This is the best form of advertising because I get a free useful tool out of it.

osrec 9y ago
Yes absolutely. I think if you want people to give you their time and trust, you have to give them something of value in return. We're working on releasing more OSS as it really does help to bolster our business. In fact, we are even thinking of making Bx itself free, and simply taking a small cut when users receive payment for invoices raised on the platform.

godzillabrennus 9y ago

I know someone who has a company with over a billion unique visitors a year and they only bring in tens of millions a year in revenue. I have a site with over a million uniques a year and we did almost thousands a year in revenue. We are far from experts on selling ads but still it’s a tough way to monetize something small.

elorant 9y ago
Your examples aren't contradictory. A site with a bn uniques can have let's say 10bn impressions. With a CTR of 1%, assuming by the the high number of users that it's news related and so doesn't get that many clicks, and a CPC of $0,15 it could bring a low 8 figure income. It all depends on the kind of content. Target women and you get higher CTRs. As for the guy with the billion uniques, well he should start contacting advertisers himself. With that kind of traffic it's a crime not to.

benatkin 9y ago

To see what's most effective it might be better to watch how ad companies are selling their own services than to follow their advice. It seems like they're getting more through sales staff and content marketing and that online ads are only a small part of what gets them sales.

chillybean 9y ago
I like this idea. I mean, how often do you see an ad for Facebook ads or Google AdWords?! They do pop up every now and again, but are infrequent at best.

gcb0 9y ago

you don't see users getting smarter about ads. trust me. you see your close circle of acquaintances getting smarter about ads. the general population is going downhill, by all metrics we have access to. In one case, people were trying to access a (fake) bank site, which had ads. it was an ad scammer that bought mistyped domains and cloned the homepages, in an automated way. and very badly. yet it had millions of impressions, most with several PVs from same user showing that they did click around.

packet_nerd 9y ago
Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. At family holiday gatherings they've even started asking me to "do that thing you do" to clean up their browsers. Regular people are getting very very tired of so many obnoxious ads, and even though they don't think about it much, no one is like "hey, I have WAY to much privacy! I need to give away my data!!"
- extra88 9y ago
  You're still the exception. I don't use an ad blocker, of my two immediate IT staff coworkers, only one does use one. However, I do do things that mean I see fewer ads, especially obnoxious ones. I spend a lot of my time in RSS feeds, not often venturing to the actual sites. When I do go to those sites, if ads are burdensome, I use Safari's Reader View and I have enabled the "always use" option for a few sites (e.g. The Verge). I'm also on sites like this and Reddit, which is quite ad-lite. I subscribe to one political news site which gives me A) full-text in RSS and B) reduced ads on the site (I occasionally go to the site because the RSS doesn't have images or embedded content).
  - packet_nerd 9y ago
    > You're still the exception Depends in the measure, I guess. Recent versions of Chrome have started blocking certain obtrusive ads by default. That's getting pretty mainstream.

exolymph 9y ago

What doesn't add up is that you and your circle are not typical users. Try talking to advertisers doing direct response on Facebook — they keep a very close eye on ROI. Brand advertising is less trackable, but advertising does and has always worked. If it didn't, businesses that didn't spend on advertising would outcompete those that do.

osrec 9y ago
Then why are companies like P&G cutting digital ad spend significantly? And why is this actually having a positive impact on their bottom line?
- elorant 9y ago
  Because advertising for big companies is all about brand awareness and has little to do with sales per se. You can't follow a P&G add and end-up in a page where you can buy the damn product, 9 out of 10 times you'll end-up in an info page. It's the little guys that get the most out of digital advertising, especially e-commerce sites where they can link ads to products.
  - osrec 9y ago
    I would have agreed with you 5 years ago, but currently, I don't see the same in my business, nor in the businesses of my close friends or relatives. It could of course just be that we're in a niche where ads don't work too well!
krrrh 9y ago
I think that the pie of attention is still increasing which offsets the crisis, but the percentage of people running adblockers is rapidly approaching “typical user” in many countries. See the most recent PageFair report, percentage of users running adblockers increased 30% YoY: https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/ https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/