You pointed out a niche where internet ads apparently worked well (though isn’t some of that just survivorship bias?) I found the eBay data interesting because

You pointed out a niche where internet ads apparently worked well (though isn’t some of that just survivorship bias?) I found the eBay data interesting because AI had assumed that they would have a fairly sophisticated online operation, and yet neither the branded nor non-brand ads really helped (for the latter, removing ads led to -40% on clicks, but -2% on sales). I can’t imagine that the neighborhood pizza place is really doing a top-notch job on ad attribution; it seems a heck of a lot more likely that they throw a few ads up because everyone else does too.