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Yes but they seldom know /which/ ads are successfully the source and barring coupon codes and immediate click theough direct purchases most customers will be re

Yes but they seldom know /which/ ads are successfully the source and barring coupon codes and immediate click theough direct purchases most customers will be repelled by constant irrelevant to them probing about where they saw the ads first. Advertisers technically only need to sell to those with a sustainable revenue stream and/or a sustainable stream of new customers who cannot indefinitely sustain advertised. The odds are low but it is entirely possible for a very successful advertiser to be successful on pure "superstition" wrongly attributing the sales to them. Ironically the reverse is also possible where a successful advertiser is wrongly believed to not be doing anything and their prior boosts mere coincidences. The Pokemon "Press B to boost catch chance" urban legend was widely believed for instance until discredited by data mining and testing as people saw a pattern not truly there.

jariel 7y ago
Yes, absolutely, there's a lot of grey around marketing campaigns, but a lot of them are direct as well. To the extent Google can provide direct value, they want to do that. Google is not 'selling ad space' - they are trying to help you sell your product. Hence the fact they punish low-quality ads. The very nature of Google ads, and the reason they make so much money relates to the 'relevance' of search terms. It's not great, but it's better than nothing. If Google could do more for direct conversions, they would because the value of their product would rise quite a lot.