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Well, the onus is on people who make the claim that it works to put the scientific material forward, not the other way around. And so, "to the best of my knowl

Well, the onus is on people who make the claim that it works to put the scientific material forward, not the other way around. And so, "to the best of my knowledge, this is unsolved" is not an opinion but a fact. I am happy to be proven wrong with the relevant material. And by material, I mean scientific papers, not assertions such as "product/seasonal campaigns are super easy to measure and prove."

yunohn 5y ago
I understand your sentiment, but surely you realise that the entire ads industry has a lot of proven outcomes? All the millions/billions spent by customers isn’t done so blindly. There’s quite a bit of research on this topic - googling will give you a ton of results, and then a lot of hyped “ads don’t work” material too.
- whiplash451 5y ago
  I spent six years in ad tech. I definitely realize that the industry has proven outcomes. My point is that these outcomes are not about what is called "incrementality" in the field, but about attributed clicks/sales (which could very well be a zero-sum game). And so, if you google-scholar (not google) for "online advertising incrementality", you are left with (granted, excellent) work that shows that nothing has been proven yet and that it is a very hard problem [1]. And when customers of Google, Facebook and other ad tech companies ask them about incrementality, their answer is surprisingly quiet. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3447548.3470819 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3447548.3470819 PS: I don't make any hyped claim that ads don't work. I question this fact in a constructive way.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    I’ve spent ~5 years in ad-tech, and I’m well aware that it is not irrefutably solved. But I would attribute that to measurement limitations, than actual conceptual problems. I’ve seen the impact ads can have for SMBs and MNCs alike across verticals. Proving specific incrementality is rarely a concern from actual customers, unless they wanted to tighten their purse strings. Nobody questioned if actual incremental gains could be made - only whether there are diminishing returns for their increased spend.

yunohn 5y ago

I understand your sentiment, but surely you realise that the entire ads industry has a lot of proven outcomes? All the millions/billions spent by customers isn’t done so blindly. There’s quite a bit of research on this topic - googling will give you a ton of results, and then a lot of hyped “ads don’t work” material too.

whiplash451 5y ago
I spent six years in ad tech. I definitely realize that the industry has proven outcomes. My point is that these outcomes are not about what is called "incrementality" in the field, but about attributed clicks/sales (which could very well be a zero-sum game). And so, if you google-scholar (not google) for "online advertising incrementality", you are left with (granted, excellent) work that shows that nothing has been proven yet and that it is a very hard problem [1]. And when customers of Google, Facebook and other ad tech companies ask them about incrementality, their answer is surprisingly quiet. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3447548.3470819 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3447548.3470819 PS: I don't make any hyped claim that ads don't work. I question this fact in a constructive way.
- yunohn 5y ago
  I’ve spent ~5 years in ad-tech, and I’m well aware that it is not irrefutably solved. But I would attribute that to measurement limitations, than actual conceptual problems. I’ve seen the impact ads can have for SMBs and MNCs alike across verticals. Proving specific incrementality is rarely a concern from actual customers, unless they wanted to tighten their purse strings. Nobody questioned if actual incremental gains could be made - only whether there are diminishing returns for their increased spend.