9 ms·

The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs (2012)

62 points by cwaffles 5y ago

nerdponx 5y ago
> Similarly, this law provides a litmus test as to the difference between advertising and information. When you are marketing with useful information, then CTRs stay high. Advertising that’s just novelty and noise wrapped in a new marketing channel has a limited shelf life. As a not-a-marketing/ad-person, if more ads contained useful information and less emotional pandering to whatever/whoever they think I am, I'd be more likely to look at and click on them. That, and not actively surveilling me...
- zbyforgotpass 5y ago
  Unfortunately if they don't know anything about you - then they will not be able to deliver anything informative.
  - Igelau 5y ago
    Uhh, I think they meant "informative about the product for sale", not "informative about the aspirations being targeted"
    - zbyforgotpass 5y ago
      My point was that to informative about a product you need to know the person you are advertising to. First of all because you need to choose the product that he might be interested about.
      - garaetjjte 5y ago
        That's easy, instead of profiling user just select ads based on website content.
- cobertos 5y ago
  This is also the same thinking for why so many random companies have blogs with marginally relevant keyword-specific content written by people with little domain expertise (e.g. contract content writers)
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    This, and also terrible review articles, "top 10 best X" lists, and anything that can gain an SEO edge.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Is it not common knowledge that clickthrough rates for online ads are execrable? I recall a discussion here a bit ago about ad tracking and it seemed like a lot of commenters thought that knowing how well an ad worked was as easy as taking the tracking ID of the click that brought the buyer to the seller's site and looking up which ad it was and where it ran. But clickthrough rates are so bad that they are effectively useless for even for so-called useful ads that nobody with any sophistication cares about that metric. Pretty much the only thing that adtech talks about is CPI now.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I would too, but we are also not normal. Compared to the median person we have a much more engineering focused mindset, we have incomparably deeper technical knowledge and skill in computer programming and are far more willing to read. That means that things that work well to target us may not work well for the average person. I finally understood this after thinking way to many times "why would anybody be stupid enough to do X" when it turns out the answer is lots of people.
m_ke 5y ago
Marketers are now busy ruining web search with blog spam and podcasts with sponsored content.
- Reebz 5y ago
  The one thing that I would like to stress to the HN community is that marketing != advertising. Most complaints are about intrusive advertising. Product management, customer analysis, demand and financial modeling, and all similar aspects of market making is what marketing traditionally is. Advertising and promotions is a small component that tars the broader industry.
  - tremon 5y ago
    No, I'm sorry, most complaints here are about intrusive customer analysis, not about ads. Consumer profiling is a large component that tars the entire industry.
- forgotmyoldname 5y ago
  As well as endless newsletter signups in a century where nobody checks their email.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    The newsletter signup is the modern version of "please bookmark this site". Another thing people don't really do anymore. It's really sad too, because these sites know that you clicked on them from a sea of similar looking results, and this signup form is the only way you're likely to even remember their existence.
  - m_ke 5y ago
    Oh yeah forgot who ruined email, if that wasn't bad enough I can't even pickup the phone anymore because I get multiple scam calls per day.
    - janci 5y ago
szastamasta 5y ago
I sometimes think, that marketing is one of the worst thing that happened to us. It is constantly destroying all things that worked really well for us. There were times when checking my mailbox (I mean physical one) was either important - taxes, administration, bills or fun - postcards from family and friends. Now it’s 99% spam. It’s not worth checking. Email - the same. Mostly spam and shitty newsletters that will 'Teach you to Be Rich...'. Professional press - instead of interesting and novel ideas and research we get sponsored junk just to sell services. Instead of honest reviews we get paid test winners. All mixed with just plain old full page commercials. TV shows - instead of good story we get some unbelievable plots that are built only to excuse showing a sponsor car, cooking pots or some other junk. Phone - few years ago a call from unknown number meant your kid was sick or you have missed something in your taxes. Now it's always spam, many times per day. I've already disabled all notifications from numbers out of my contact list. Blogs - they used to be interesting or personal, now it's either commercial spam, worthless review/comparisons or a personal brand spam. Mostly written by cheap contractors with no experience in the field. I hope it get's replaced by GPT-3 soon. The list is pretty long: - city full of ugly banners - loading screens in cash machines so you can see a commercial - commercials in movie theaters before and after the film - worthless books just to build personal brand or promote products - sidewalks full of flyers - free games for kids on mobile - web pages with popups - addictive social media practices - spam comments underneath articles and in forums - reddit communities full of spam The list goes on. If we give them more time they will find a way to destroy everything that's worth while for us. Well paid psychologists, instead of helping people will find a way to get to your brain with next junk you don't need while data scientists prepare more reports from our personal data. After that engineers will work hard to circumvent your ad blocker instead of adding new features, fixing performance or improving user experience. Sorry, for the long rant, but sometimes I simply think their mission in life is to make our lives worse. In the end I'm just happy that clickthroughs are shitty. And that they stay this way.
- lukebutton 5y ago
  I agree, but the answer isn't less technology the only way to solve this is with better tech
- 5y ago
1cvmask 5y ago
The main takeaway: The 10X solution to solving the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, even momentarily, is to discover the next untapped marketing channel. In addition to doubling down on traditional forms of online advertising like banners, search, and email, it’s important to work hard to get to the next marketing channel while it’s uncontested. Sometimes I get asked “have you ever seen someone do XYZ to acquire customers?” Turns out, the highest vote of confidence I can give is, “No I haven’t, and that’s good – that means there’s a higher chance of it working. You should try it.”
dazbradbury 5y ago
Can this be tagged with 2012? Otherwise people might think Andrew Chen is advocating for mobile notifications and Open Graph in 2021... Here is the 2012 discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804055 The dated URL is: http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/05/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/ http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/05/the-law-of-shitty-clickthrou...
mike_hock 5y ago
I don't get it. It's written as though this spamming marketing cancer is somehow a virtue, and I'm supposed to have an ounce of compassion for the poor marketer constantly having to come up with new ways to shove his shit in my face and admire his ingenuity.
SimeVidas 5y ago
Speaking of laws, there should be a law that forces blogs to put publication dates below article titles. Was this article published yesterday or 10 years ago?
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
  I'd be OK if it was at the bottom of the article. And make sure the year is there, too. I've seen far too many blog skins that only show "Oct 15" (for example) but no year anywhere.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Because "evergreen" content is in fact part of the problem being described here.
rchaud 5y ago
> The 10X solution to solving the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, even momentarily, is to discover the next untapped marketing channel. There is no such thing as an uncontested marketing channel. It's why browsing the Internet feels like a chore on most days. Any interesting UGC site with an audience will be deluged with marketers. Think about Medium and Quora. Great when they began, back when contributors understood the intent of the site, and wrote accordingly. Today, they are nothing more than an appendage of one's personal brand and SEO strategy.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

62 points by cwaffles 5y ago

> Similarly, this law provides a litmus test as to the difference between advertising and information. When you are marketing with useful information, then CTRs stay high. Advertising that’s just novelty and noise wrapped in a new marketing channel has a limited shelf life. As a not-a-marketing/ad-person, if more ads contained useful information and less emotional pandering to whatever/whoever they think I am, I'd be more likely to look at and click on them. That, and not actively surveilling me...

zbyforgotpass 5y ago
Unfortunately if they don't know anything about you - then they will not be able to deliver anything informative.
- Igelau 5y ago
  Uhh, I think they meant "informative about the product for sale", not "informative about the aspirations being targeted"
  - zbyforgotpass 5y ago
    My point was that to informative about a product you need to know the person you are advertising to. First of all because you need to choose the product that he might be interested about.
    - garaetjjte 5y ago
      That's easy, instead of profiling user just select ads based on website content.
cobertos 5y ago
This is also the same thinking for why so many random companies have blogs with marginally relevant keyword-specific content written by people with little domain expertise (e.g. contract content writers)
- cratermoon 5y ago
  This, and also terrible review articles, "top 10 best X" lists, and anything that can gain an SEO edge.
cratermoon 5y ago
Is it not common knowledge that clickthrough rates for online ads are execrable? I recall a discussion here a bit ago about ad tracking and it seemed like a lot of commenters thought that knowing how well an ad worked was as easy as taking the tracking ID of the click that brought the buyer to the seller's site and looking up which ad it was and where it ran. But clickthrough rates are so bad that they are effectively useless for even for so-called useful ads that nobody with any sophistication cares about that metric. Pretty much the only thing that adtech talks about is CPI now.
tomjen3 5y ago
I would too, but we are also not normal. Compared to the median person we have a much more engineering focused mindset, we have incomparably deeper technical knowledge and skill in computer programming and are far more willing to read. That means that things that work well to target us may not work well for the average person. I finally understood this after thinking way to many times "why would anybody be stupid enough to do X" when it turns out the answer is lots of people.

m_ke 5y ago

Marketers are now busy ruining web search with blog spam and podcasts with sponsored content.

Reebz 5y ago
The one thing that I would like to stress to the HN community is that marketing != advertising. Most complaints are about intrusive advertising. Product management, customer analysis, demand and financial modeling, and all similar aspects of market making is what marketing traditionally is. Advertising and promotions is a small component that tars the broader industry.
- tremon 5y ago
  No, I'm sorry, most complaints here are about intrusive customer analysis, not about ads. Consumer profiling is a large component that tars the entire industry.
forgotmyoldname 5y ago
As well as endless newsletter signups in a century where nobody checks their email.
- rchaud 5y ago
  The newsletter signup is the modern version of "please bookmark this site". Another thing people don't really do anymore. It's really sad too, because these sites know that you clicked on them from a sea of similar looking results, and this signup form is the only way you're likely to even remember their existence.
- m_ke 5y ago
  Oh yeah forgot who ruined email, if that wasn't bad enough I can't even pickup the phone anymore because I get multiple scam calls per day.
  - janci 5y ago

szastamasta 5y ago

I sometimes think, that marketing is one of the worst thing that happened to us. It is constantly destroying all things that worked really well for us. There were times when checking my mailbox (I mean physical one) was either important - taxes, administration, bills or fun - postcards from family and friends. Now it’s 99% spam. It’s not worth checking. Email - the same. Mostly spam and shitty newsletters that will 'Teach you to Be Rich...'. Professional press - instead of interesting and novel ideas and research we get sponsored junk just to sell services. Instead of honest reviews we get paid test winners. All mixed with just plain old full page commercials. TV shows - instead of good story we get some unbelievable plots that are built only to excuse showing a sponsor car, cooking pots or some other junk. Phone - few years ago a call from unknown number meant your kid was sick or you have missed something in your taxes. Now it's always spam, many times per day. I've already disabled all notifications from numbers out of my contact list. Blogs - they used to be interesting or personal, now it's either commercial spam, worthless review/comparisons or a personal brand spam. Mostly written by cheap contractors with no experience in the field. I hope it get's replaced by GPT-3 soon. The list is pretty long: - city full of ugly banners - loading screens in cash machines so you can see a commercial - commercials in movie theaters before and after the film - worthless books just to build personal brand or promote products - sidewalks full of flyers - free games for kids on mobile - web pages with popups - addictive social media practices - spam comments underneath articles and in forums - reddit communities full of spam The list goes on. If we give them more time they will find a way to destroy everything that's worth while for us. Well paid psychologists, instead of helping people will find a way to get to your brain with next junk you don't need while data scientists prepare more reports from our personal data. After that engineers will work hard to circumvent your ad blocker instead of adding new features, fixing performance or improving user experience. Sorry, for the long rant, but sometimes I simply think their mission in life is to make our lives worse. In the end I'm just happy that clickthroughs are shitty. And that they stay this way.

lukebutton 5y ago
I agree, but the answer isn't less technology the only way to solve this is with better tech
5y ago

1cvmask 5y ago

The main takeaway: The 10X solution to solving the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, even momentarily, is to discover the next untapped marketing channel. In addition to doubling down on traditional forms of online advertising like banners, search, and email, it’s important to work hard to get to the next marketing channel while it’s uncontested. Sometimes I get asked “have you ever seen someone do XYZ to acquire customers?” Turns out, the highest vote of confidence I can give is, “No I haven’t, and that’s good – that means there’s a higher chance of it working. You should try it.”

dazbradbury 5y ago

Can this be tagged with 2012? Otherwise people might think Andrew Chen is advocating for mobile notifications and Open Graph in 2021... Here is the 2012 discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804055 The dated URL is: http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/05/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/ http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/05/the-law-of-shitty-clickthrou...

mike_hock 5y ago

I don't get it. It's written as though this spamming marketing cancer is somehow a virtue, and I'm supposed to have an ounce of compassion for the poor marketer constantly having to come up with new ways to shove his shit in my face and admire his ingenuity.

SimeVidas 5y ago

Speaking of laws, there should be a law that forces blogs to put publication dates below article titles. Was this article published yesterday or 10 years ago?

theandrewbailey 5y ago
I'd be OK if it was at the bottom of the article. And make sure the year is there, too. I've seen far too many blog skins that only show "Oct 15" (for example) but no year anywhere.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Because "evergreen" content is in fact part of the problem being described here.

rchaud 5y ago

> The 10X solution to solving the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, even momentarily, is to discover the next untapped marketing channel. There is no such thing as an uncontested marketing channel. It's why browsing the Internet feels like a chore on most days. Any interesting UGC site with an audience will be deluged with marketers. Think about Medium and Quora. Great when they began, back when contributors understood the intent of the site, and wrote accordingly. Today, they are nothing more than an appendage of one's personal brand and SEO strategy.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]