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Oh snap! I went to some random PG essay to see which ad agency PG would put up and was immediately disappointed to see an ad for Mortgages, which was entirely

by Leon 19y ago

Oh snap! I went to some random PG essay to see which ad agency PG would put up and was immediately disappointed to see an ad for Mortgages, which was entirely off-base for the page, but then an up/down mod appeared! What?! That was awesome! Down clicking made a 'Sorry' box appear and the ad was gone! Huzzah! But still, what will happen when an advertisement that a group pays for is consistently down-modded into oblivion, essentially nullifying any chance for it to appear? How will the YC startup handle the irate company? I know an answer would be that they should change their advertisements, but still, some companies may get angry at the YC startup that the money they payed for advertisement didn't do any good. How will they handle that situation? I'm guessing the advertisements are charged on a per-click bases, but is there a base charge, or tiered pricing for size of initial random viewing of web-pages registered with the company? If the YC startup can't fulfill a promise of at least some level of ad-viewer-ship, then why should a company have their ads go through them?

byrneseyeview 19y ago
So, what you're saying is "Who would want to be rewarded based on performance, given that some people won't perform well?" I guess I might be irate if I said "Let my customers tell me how good my ads are," and the answer was "They suck," but wouldn't I be better off knowing, or at least having the option to know?
- Leon 19y ago
  Yes, a reasonable person would be glad to have such feedback, but I was more curious of the Marketing Management reaction who would look at their ad click-through's and notice that they aren't that high for a service they just paid money for, or that they're ads aren't even being viewed anywhere at all. I was just asking how an online advertising service, especially a small startup, handle such things.
  - byrneseyeview 19y ago
    But what about the marketing manager's manager. If the marketing guy says "We could use this new ad service -- but we'll only get clicks if users like our ads, and that's not going to work out well for us," he'd deserve to lose his job. Nobody who says "the more accurately you judge my efforts, the worse off I'll be" is worth keeping around.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]
    - Leon 19y ago
      I was trying to spark conversation along a different line of dialog, but maybe I have been misunderstood. Yes, this new ad system is a great idea - instant feedback and better, more specific targeting for individual websites and viewers, and any ad/marketing group should love it. Yet a certain amount of unpredictability remains, especially for ad click-through rates, and it is this that I wanted to follow. Right now, it is relatively easy for a company to sign up for an online advertising service with some minimal guaranteed ad views. From that companies can project future earnings based on their click through and purchase rates, even if their ads are terrible, and nobody except for 0.1% click, they at least have a base line for money coming in that is fairly reliable. This system, however bad for the end users experience, is extremely helpful for the businesses planning and forecasting. Now, the CFO can say, 'We're going to have at least this much money!', and Net Ops groups can say, 'Well that means we'll probably need this much bandwidth!', and the entire business can some-what get along. Then, Adpinion steps in. Suddenly, Advertising/Marketing can't predict how much, or even if, they'll be able to meet previous projections, projections are useless at this point. Now the CFO can't say if the company will be able to meet market predictions, and the Net Ops guys will be in the dark about if they'll suddenly be crushed by users' bandwidth requests or that they've over allocated bandwidth and they're now stuck with some fat pipes that are just getting spam messages. Well, this is all a little dire, but the point is that Adpinion can create contentions in a business. Ah! But here is what I wanted to follow through on - even if Adpinion can create unpredictability in long running advertising strategies, the real win here would be for a one-two punch with traditional online advertising venues. A business could market test half their advertising revenue, find what works and then send it through traditional online ad streams. Now that business can up their average click rate by quickly market testing ads, and they can make their advertising team hungry and on-edge about what how well that day/week/months' ad scheme performed. And this is where Adpinion wins, for me. From an overall business perspective, outside of a localized ad/marketing department, it would provide such a benefit to any company that they would be senseless not to use it.
vegashacker 19y ago
Maybe the YC company only charges advertisers for each impression -- or maybe for each click-thru. If an advertiser's goods are "down-modded into oblivion", then the advertiser at least didn't have to pay anything. And they can take their ad to, say, AdSense, or some other less exclusive network.

by Leon 19y ago

byrneseyeview 19y ago

So, what you're saying is "Who would want to be rewarded based on performance, given that some people won't perform well?" I guess I might be irate if I said "Let my customers tell me how good my ads are," and the answer was "They suck," but wouldn't I be better off knowing, or at least having the option to know?

Leon 19y ago
Yes, a reasonable person would be glad to have such feedback, but I was more curious of the Marketing Management reaction who would look at their ad click-through's and notice that they aren't that high for a service they just paid money for, or that they're ads aren't even being viewed anywhere at all. I was just asking how an online advertising service, especially a small startup, handle such things.
- byrneseyeview 19y ago
  But what about the marketing manager's manager. If the marketing guy says "We could use this new ad service -- but we'll only get clicks if users like our ads, and that's not going to work out well for us," he'd deserve to lose his job. Nobody who says "the more accurately you judge my efforts, the worse off I'll be" is worth keeping around.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
  - Leon 19y ago
    I was trying to spark conversation along a different line of dialog, but maybe I have been misunderstood. Yes, this new ad system is a great idea - instant feedback and better, more specific targeting for individual websites and viewers, and any ad/marketing group should love it. Yet a certain amount of unpredictability remains, especially for ad click-through rates, and it is this that I wanted to follow. Right now, it is relatively easy for a company to sign up for an online advertising service with some minimal guaranteed ad views. From that companies can project future earnings based on their click through and purchase rates, even if their ads are terrible, and nobody except for 0.1% click, they at least have a base line for money coming in that is fairly reliable. This system, however bad for the end users experience, is extremely helpful for the businesses planning and forecasting. Now, the CFO can say, 'We're going to have at least this much money!', and Net Ops groups can say, 'Well that means we'll probably need this much bandwidth!', and the entire business can some-what get along. Then, Adpinion steps in. Suddenly, Advertising/Marketing can't predict how much, or even if, they'll be able to meet previous projections, projections are useless at this point. Now the CFO can't say if the company will be able to meet market predictions, and the Net Ops guys will be in the dark about if they'll suddenly be crushed by users' bandwidth requests or that they've over allocated bandwidth and they're now stuck with some fat pipes that are just getting spam messages. Well, this is all a little dire, but the point is that Adpinion can create contentions in a business. Ah! But here is what I wanted to follow through on - even if Adpinion can create unpredictability in long running advertising strategies, the real win here would be for a one-two punch with traditional online advertising venues. A business could market test half their advertising revenue, find what works and then send it through traditional online ad streams. Now that business can up their average click rate by quickly market testing ads, and they can make their advertising team hungry and on-edge about what how well that day/week/months' ad scheme performed. And this is where Adpinion wins, for me. From an overall business perspective, outside of a localized ad/marketing department, it would provide such a benefit to any company that they would be senseless not to use it.

vegashacker 19y ago

Maybe the YC company only charges advertisers for each impression -- or maybe for each click-thru. If an advertiser's goods are "down-modded into oblivion", then the advertiser at least didn't have to pay anything. And they can take their ad to, say, AdSense, or some other less exclusive network.