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I am the CMO for a company. Google is the ONLY ad provider that give results, all others don't even get any clicks. How that is not a monopoly on the classic

I am the CMO for a company. Google is the ONLY ad provider that give results, all others don't even get any clicks. How that is not a monopoly on the classic definition? Every time Google has a bug and screw with my ads, the revenue of the company I work for tanks hard, and I am yet to find any solution for it.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
You may want to contact the antitrust regulators, testimonies such as your are highly relevant to this case.
- emteycz 6y ago
  they are also untrue in general. in some markets social networking ads work, in some search ads work, that's to be expected - you don't expect eg. ad placements by the train company to be always effective regardless of what you're selling.
  - nightski 6y ago
    Don't worry Google does not need your defense, they'll have plenty of very highly paid lawyers and lobbyists ready to do that.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      I don't care about Google. I simply know from experience this is untrue. If anything, I am defending Facebook here.
- donor20 6y ago
  I'd love to see the specifics of these players. Facebook targeting is actually more effective in many cases then google (I don't even use facebook personally or have the app myself). A lot of the claims by folks fall apart when you look deeper (ie, scam review sites complaining about google rankings etc). The CUSTOMER should benefit - I don't give a crap if some scammers get ranked down.
nova22033 6y ago
Google is the ONLY ad provider that give results, all others don't even get any clicks. Being effective doesn't make you a monopoly.
- tomlue 6y ago
  I don't think he meant that other companies are bad at getting clicks. I think he meant his company relies on search engine driven ads. Google has a monopoly on the search engine. There are many companies that need to rely on search engine traffic, not social media, for online advertising. Keep in mind that search engine traffic is enormous, and can fairly be called a "trade" or "commodity/service" that can be monopolized in it's own right. I don't think anybody is saying that google has a monopoly on all advertising.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    But I don't think this tracks unless you treat search as something special. If I own a billboard then I have a monopoly on that billboard. Presumably I built/bought that billboard because I knew that the ad space would be valuable and that companies would need to pay me for it. Google owns extremely valuable ad space but that to me doesn't make a monopoly just because Bing or Facebook's ad space isn't as good for certain companies.
    - hannasanarion 6y ago
      And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too. Monopolies are traditionally assessed in terms of product categories, not entire industries. Nobody ever said "standard oil isn't a monopoly, because you can also buy coal fuel"
      - turtleturtle 6y ago
        And practically any company can build as many billboards as they want. Online ads aren't restricted by physical space. Google just happens to own most web traffic because they're really good at search.
Nasrudith 6y ago
No offense but that personal dependence on Google to do your job adequately looks like something which reflects more on you than Google. Now I don't know much about working in the domain but would generally expect a professional acting as a middleman to be capable of producing an adequate ad campaign with more than one provider. It sort of looks more like a Dunning-Kruger inadvertent call for help about being unable to do their job despite their title than an insider testimony of abuse. "I have the company using Windows because I can't set up a basic Linux workstation and I am CTO!" equivalent essentially. May be unfair but I figured it would help to know your message may not be received as you think.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attacks in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
treis 6y ago
That depends heavily on your industry and obviously isnt true as a rule. Google gets 37% of ad spend, Facebook ~20% and then everyone else combines for the last 40%. It's true that if your looking at targeting users searching for something that it's basically just Google. But people are increasingly using apps and specific sites over general surfing. Reddit, tiktok, snap, etc. all have their own ads and collectively represent major competition.
- IncRnd 6y ago
  In our tests, we get results from Google but ads on Facebook produce trash results.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    You bid on ads so if the results are poor on fb they must be working for the competitors.
    - IncRnd 6y ago
      You are assuming things that aren't true. There is no competition for us.
fakedang 6y ago
I'm surprised. I thought Facebook would have been somewhat effective. Can anyone point out any use cases of when Facebook and Google work and don't work? FWIW my dad ran a few FB ads for his SME and it was alright, although nothing stellar either. He didn't run on Google though so I can't really draw a comparison.

giancarlostoro 6y ago

You may want to contact the antitrust regulators, testimonies such as your are highly relevant to this case.

emteycz 6y ago
they are also untrue in general. in some markets social networking ads work, in some search ads work, that's to be expected - you don't expect eg. ad placements by the train company to be always effective regardless of what you're selling.
- nightski 6y ago
  Don't worry Google does not need your defense, they'll have plenty of very highly paid lawyers and lobbyists ready to do that.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    I don't care about Google. I simply know from experience this is untrue. If anything, I am defending Facebook here.
donor20 6y ago
I'd love to see the specifics of these players. Facebook targeting is actually more effective in many cases then google (I don't even use facebook personally or have the app myself). A lot of the claims by folks fall apart when you look deeper (ie, scam review sites complaining about google rankings etc). The CUSTOMER should benefit - I don't give a crap if some scammers get ranked down.

nova22033 6y ago

Google is the ONLY ad provider that give results, all others don't even get any clicks. Being effective doesn't make you a monopoly.

tomlue 6y ago
I don't think he meant that other companies are bad at getting clicks. I think he meant his company relies on search engine driven ads. Google has a monopoly on the search engine. There are many companies that need to rely on search engine traffic, not social media, for online advertising. Keep in mind that search engine traffic is enormous, and can fairly be called a "trade" or "commodity/service" that can be monopolized in it's own right. I don't think anybody is saying that google has a monopoly on all advertising.
- Spivak 6y ago
  But I don't think this tracks unless you treat search as something special. If I own a billboard then I have a monopoly on that billboard. Presumably I built/bought that billboard because I knew that the ad space would be valuable and that companies would need to pay me for it. Google owns extremely valuable ad space but that to me doesn't make a monopoly just because Bing or Facebook's ad space isn't as good for certain companies.
  - hannasanarion 6y ago
    And if only one company owned all the billboards in the world, that would be a monopoly too. Monopolies are traditionally assessed in terms of product categories, not entire industries. Nobody ever said "standard oil isn't a monopoly, because you can also buy coal fuel"
    - turtleturtle 6y ago
      And practically any company can build as many billboards as they want. Online ads aren't restricted by physical space. Google just happens to own most web traffic because they're really good at search.

Nasrudith 6y ago

No offense but that personal dependence on Google to do your job adequately looks like something which reflects more on you than Google. Now I don't know much about working in the domain but would generally expect a professional acting as a middleman to be capable of producing an adequate ad campaign with more than one provider. It sort of looks more like a Dunning-Kruger inadvertent call for help about being unable to do their job despite their title than an insider testimony of abuse. "I have the company using Windows because I can't set up a basic Linux workstation and I am CTO!" equivalent essentially. May be unfair but I figured it would help to know your message may not be received as you think.

dang 6y ago
Please don't cross into personal attacks in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

treis 6y ago

That depends heavily on your industry and obviously isnt true as a rule. Google gets 37% of ad spend, Facebook ~20% and then everyone else combines for the last 40%. It's true that if your looking at targeting users searching for something that it's basically just Google. But people are increasingly using apps and specific sites over general surfing. Reddit, tiktok, snap, etc. all have their own ads and collectively represent major competition.

IncRnd 6y ago
In our tests, we get results from Google but ads on Facebook produce trash results.
- chrischen 6y ago
  You bid on ads so if the results are poor on fb they must be working for the competitors.
  - IncRnd 6y ago
    You are assuming things that aren't true. There is no competition for us.

fakedang 6y ago

I'm surprised. I thought Facebook would have been somewhat effective. Can anyone point out any use cases of when Facebook and Google work and don't work? FWIW my dad ran a few FB ads for his SME and it was alright, although nothing stellar either. He didn't run on Google though so I can't really draw a comparison.