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It's true that ultimately for our product, conversion into customers is what matters in the end. But I don't think that makes this article useless. Almost all

It's true that ultimately for our product, conversion into customers is what matters in the end. But I don't think that makes this article useless. Almost all businesses want to get people "through the door" to your website or product, and our experiment shows how you can do that for a relatively low price. A logical follow on would focus on the landing page and conversion, but that is beyond the scope of this original experiment, which was to show you the mechanics of lowering your CPC.

pbhjpbhj 15y ago
I think the parent is right: Businesses don't just want to get people through the door, why attract people who will never buy anything at all, ever, and moreover will drop their food wrappers, mess up the produce abuse your staff, etc.. I think there are similarly toxic customers for online businesses (though I'd guess they tend to waste less resources) - e.g. those who will use things and return them for a refund even when they're not faulty. Slightly aside, aren't the ads targeted to Pakistan cheaper because the ad costs as a proportion of revenue per item are likely to be far higher if the ads are simply charged as if for a company operating in a "richer" nation? Isn't ad competition higher in richer nations? To make it clearer - using the Big Mac index - Denmark comes in at $5 and Malaysia at $1.50. I'd expect advertising costs to people in Malaysia to be at least a third of those to people in Denmark (barring other over-bearing factors).
- garbowza 15y ago
  Definitely that's the reason the ads are cheaper in less developed and less wealthy countries. It's simple supply & demand: obviously there are more people targeting ads towards users in the U.S. and other wealthy countries. We touched on a lot of this in the article, and in fact the title clause "(and why you might not want to)" was referring specifically to that point! That being said, there is a tremendous amount of useful techniques you can learn from this approach, and you can choose apply those towards whatever demographics you are marketing to. It's up to each person to decide the specific goals of their ad campaigns, but I'm hoping this article outlines some techniques that will help you achieve those goals.

pbhjpbhj 15y ago

I think the parent is right: Businesses don't just want to get people through the door, why attract people who will never buy anything at all, ever, and moreover will drop their food wrappers, mess up the produce abuse your staff, etc.. I think there are similarly toxic customers for online businesses (though I'd guess they tend to waste less resources) - e.g. those who will use things and return them for a refund even when they're not faulty. Slightly aside, aren't the ads targeted to Pakistan cheaper because the ad costs as a proportion of revenue per item are likely to be far higher if the ads are simply charged as if for a company operating in a "richer" nation? Isn't ad competition higher in richer nations? To make it clearer - using the Big Mac index - Denmark comes in at $5 and Malaysia at $1.50. I'd expect advertising costs to people in Malaysia to be at least a third of those to people in Denmark (barring other over-bearing factors).

garbowza 15y ago
Definitely that's the reason the ads are cheaper in less developed and less wealthy countries. It's simple supply & demand: obviously there are more people targeting ads towards users in the U.S. and other wealthy countries. We touched on a lot of this in the article, and in fact the title clause "(and why you might not want to)" was referring specifically to that point! That being said, there is a tremendous amount of useful techniques you can learn from this approach, and you can choose apply those towards whatever demographics you are marketing to. It's up to each person to decide the specific goals of their ad campaigns, but I'm hoping this article outlines some techniques that will help you achieve those goals.