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?? How does the target audience (outdoor hobbyists vs software consumers) matter? Next, Patrick did not say anything about the guy not being hard working. Nor

?? How does the target audience (outdoor hobbyists vs software consumers) matter? Next, Patrick did not say anything about the guy not being hard working. Nor did I find that he was taking a dump on him. (really, what kind of language is this?). He only wrote about his experience as an Adwords/AdSense advertiser. And why are you comparing billboard and TV advertising with AdWords? As you mentioned, it is extremely hard to target and measure traditional advertising and that's one of the main reason why AdWords and AdSense have become popular and more and more business are spending money on them. Also, I am pretty sure that no one advertisiting on AdWords/AdSense is expecting that each and every click through will convert to a customer. Let's say I advertise on Hacker News. After a month, I find that the click through rate is 7%, out of which I am able to convert 1% of those clicks. Let's say PG wants to buy Mercedes and tells HN visitors to click the ads. Suddenly click through rate jumps through the roof at 14%. As those clicks are not because someone is interested in my product, my conversion rate drop s to 0.50%. So my advertising spend doubles and I actually make less money. How is it fair to me? If I was a direct advertiser for this guy's website, I would definitely call him and ask him about this unusual behavior. I will try to figure out what's happening and if the publisher doesn't co-operate, I will stop advertising on his site. The only difference in this situation is that Google is the middle man. I think it's in interest of Google to monitor unusual spike in CTR and take some action. All that aside, I completely disapprove of Google's current approach where there is no transparency and they are allowed to take money from the publisher without publisher having any recourse.

anigbrowl 16y ago
I mentioned the target audience because customers with different needs will have quite different buying patterns. When I want a software product or service, I tend to look at the offerings and make a purchase/signup decision soon after I find what I want unless price is a major factor (ie high). For someone into sailing, one might be interested in consuming content and considering advertisers' offerings year-round, but only make purchases a few times a year, at the beginning of the sailing season or in advance of a trip. Just looking at website analytics without considering market-specific purchase behavior or seasonality can be misleading. You are right that Patrick didn't say anything about him not being hard working, but using the word 'creative' to imply click-farming seemed inappropriate, considering the OP is someone working in the arts. As someone in the same field, I suppose I took it a bit personally - but how would you feel if this story involved a webapp and I said "here's how I feel about web 'programming' that just moves money from my bank account into someone else's..."? It kind of denigrates the primary skill of the business person. You are right too that new advertising systems like adwords have and deserve their popularity because they provide much better feedback and value than traditional forms of advertising. But I bring up the contrast because those traditional forms remain highly necessary for larger businesses, and part of a business's success rides on being able to accept the changing risk/reward payoff as the business grows. The farther away that a publisher or retailer is from the median, the less reliable the quality of the CTR analytics, and the more hesitant Google ought to be in applying them rigidly. When you get down to a extremely specialist market and where the spikes are measured in a few hundreds, as in this case, statistics can be more misleading than usual.

anigbrowl 16y ago

I mentioned the target audience because customers with different needs will have quite different buying patterns. When I want a software product or service, I tend to look at the offerings and make a purchase/signup decision soon after I find what I want unless price is a major factor (ie high). For someone into sailing, one might be interested in consuming content and considering advertisers' offerings year-round, but only make purchases a few times a year, at the beginning of the sailing season or in advance of a trip. Just looking at website analytics without considering market-specific purchase behavior or seasonality can be misleading. You are right that Patrick didn't say anything about him not being hard working, but using the word 'creative' to imply click-farming seemed inappropriate, considering the OP is someone working in the arts. As someone in the same field, I suppose I took it a bit personally - but how would you feel if this story involved a webapp and I said "here's how I feel about web 'programming' that just moves money from my bank account into someone else's..."? It kind of denigrates the primary skill of the business person. You are right too that new advertising systems like adwords have and deserve their popularity because they provide much better feedback and value than traditional forms of advertising. But I bring up the contrast because those traditional forms remain highly necessary for larger businesses, and part of a business's success rides on being able to accept the changing risk/reward payoff as the business grows. The farther away that a publisher or retailer is from the median, the less reliable the quality of the CTR analytics, and the more hesitant Google ought to be in applying them rigidly. When you get down to a extremely specialist market and where the spikes are measured in a few hundreds, as in this case, statistics can be more misleading than usual.