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Because most advertising is not effective on a 1:1 basis. The clean, direct conversion funnel is in most industries and sectors a complete myth. Advertising is

Because most advertising is not effective on a 1:1 basis. The clean, direct conversion funnel is in most industries and sectors a complete myth. Advertising is about awareness. All good marketing is long-term. Digital advertising has been sold (by overzealous marketers) as magical 1:1 sales machines. It is almost always not that. This is the hardest thing to convey to clients. Clients want a promise and a guarantee on their investment. The truth is there are no gurantees. But that is what clients want so they go with whoever promises the most the most confidently. The most confident ones are usually either lying or don’t know what they are talking about.

veeenu 6y ago
I worked in wealth management up until recently and can testify this exact behavioral bias was to be found in almost every single client, and sometimes in professionals as well, especially during market downturns. It's likely to be a mix of several factors, such as the fact that losses have a much stronger emotional impact than gains of similar entity, or the fact that most people aren't really trained to reason probabilistically in an intuitive manner. It is easy to be lured in by someone promising the moon when most people won't settle for anything less.
Ericson2314 6y ago
I believe there is some overall culture-rotting efficacy, but it's such a depressing conspiracy: complete coordination failure with real problems, and yet a cartel of marginally negative-ROI ad spending to prop up consumerism?
vorhemus 6y ago
That sounds like a religion: You don't know exactly what you get, there are no guarantees but if you really believe in it (and pay your marketing church tax) you'll probably end up in CTR heaven.
- dylan604 6y ago
  If you meet ad agency people, you will definitely get that cult-like vibe from them. There's a definite slimey feeling to any of their conversations regarding work. I overheard 2 people from different agencies trying to one-up each other with their stories of how much of their client's money they spent on ridiculousness. It wasn't about how they could save their client money and then spend it in other areas. One person I met that worked in ad tech and I told him the efforts with extensions/private mode/vpn/etc to block as much of ad tech as possible. He was totally aghast that people would go to that much effort to block their "harmless" tech. Yet another Kool-aid drinker. I have a feeling chatting with any G/FB employee would be similar.

veeenu 6y ago

I worked in wealth management up until recently and can testify this exact behavioral bias was to be found in almost every single client, and sometimes in professionals as well, especially during market downturns. It's likely to be a mix of several factors, such as the fact that losses have a much stronger emotional impact than gains of similar entity, or the fact that most people aren't really trained to reason probabilistically in an intuitive manner. It is easy to be lured in by someone promising the moon when most people won't settle for anything less.

Ericson2314 6y ago

I believe there is some overall culture-rotting efficacy, but it's such a depressing conspiracy: complete coordination failure with real problems, and yet a cartel of marginally negative-ROI ad spending to prop up consumerism?

vorhemus 6y ago

That sounds like a religion: You don't know exactly what you get, there are no guarantees but if you really believe in it (and pay your marketing church tax) you'll probably end up in CTR heaven.

dylan604 6y ago
If you meet ad agency people, you will definitely get that cult-like vibe from them. There's a definite slimey feeling to any of their conversations regarding work. I overheard 2 people from different agencies trying to one-up each other with their stories of how much of their client's money they spent on ridiculousness. It wasn't about how they could save their client money and then spend it in other areas. One person I met that worked in ad tech and I told him the efforts with extensions/private mode/vpn/etc to block as much of ad tech as possible. He was totally aghast that people would go to that much effort to block their "harmless" tech. Yet another Kool-aid drinker. I have a feeling chatting with any G/FB employee would be similar.