6 ms·

Wasn't CPM the norm before the market went to CPC because it was easily gamed by publishers? Also it's funny for them to say "Publishers gets 68%" which sounds

by h1fra 3y ago

Wasn't CPM the norm before the market went to CPC because it was easily gamed by publishers? Also it's funny for them to say "Publishers gets 68%" which sounds huge but actually translates to a staggering 32% fee.

Scoundreller 3y ago
I think YouTube is 50% ! But Adsense was capable of earning so much more than what most could do themselves that I was happy to “pay” them when I ran a semi-popular site. Though CPM can be gamed as well: put the ad at the bottom instead of the top. At the right instead of the left. Can be gamed by publishers too: create an ad that users see but don’t click on, but act on anyway. E.g. an ad for a cola and then you drink one from your fridge. I thought Google basically blended it all together when deciding which ad to present: a poorly clicked ad will need to pay more per click to get displayed.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
toast0 3y ago
I was working at Yahoo Travel from 2004-2011, and touched a lot of ad stuff, although some of it was indirect. Media/Display ads were normally CPM. Text ads were nearly all CPC (regardless of adwords, yahoo's search marketting, or y!travel's custom advertising market). Some display ads were CPC. There was a small amount of ads where it was CPA (cost per acquisition, advertiser only paid if the user purchased). CPA seemed like it was growing, but details of sales tracking and trust between parties probably gets in the way. Ocassionally we'd have some deal where we would have to put in links that might look like ads, but were unpaid.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  CPA seems like the fairest model from my laypersons vantage point. Is there a reason this isn't more popular on its face? Only paying for an ad when it works seems like you could charge more for the when it works part as a service (in this case Yahoo Ads or Google Ads) but it allows businesses to run ads at a higher rate if they're willing to give up more money on impression (where impression = someone buys)
  - toast0 3y ago
    The big issue with CPA is attribution. It's one thing if you see the ad, click through, and make a booking in a single session. That's easy to attribute, if all the parties involved trust each other to do the tracking. (Parties include the advertiser, the publisher, the ad network(s), maybe even the advertising agency) But what if you clicked through the ad, and then close the window, but later come back and book through the advertised site? Now we also need to have come to an agreement about 'lookback window'. Maybe a fair lookback window is different for different markets. But it gets worse. What if you clicked through the ad on your phone, and then booked on your desktop? No tracking. Or even worse, what if it's a brand ad, and you come into the physical store and buy? Definitely no tracking. (well, some people try to get tracking for that, but it's pretty iffy)
    - kevinventullo 3y ago
      Also, tracking is getting increasingly harder.
  - Macha 3y ago
    It shifts risk to the publisher. The publisher has already provided the service of making their user experience in aid of the advertisers goals. Should they get nothing for that? What if the advertiser just made an uninteresting ad? What if the advertiser's products are overpriced?
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    It requires a lot of tracking and there's a lot of games that can be played as to who actually "made the sale"
DudeOpotomus 3y ago
No it wasn't but with a CPM you can actually optimize the ads for better results since the click is the only real measure of successful ad placement. Everything else happens after a click, so getting to the click is the most important target. As for %. They're bringing the customer, providing the tool, the payments and the collection of the money. All the publisher is doing is placing some code on their site. So 32% is actually a lot cheaper than a publisher hiring their own sales staff, buying their own ad servers, collecting and sorting the payment. Just so you know.
- throwaway20222 3y ago
  I wonder if it would be cheaper if there were more competitors to google in the market than there are currently. There are many things that I could outsource that would be cheaper than doing myself (build/buy a car. Buy a cheeseburger as opposed to producing all the ingredients myself.) I am equally interested in what that 32% fee would look like in a more open market and then say if it is cheap or expensive.
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Isn't that exactly what this is addressing? This is splitting up AdSense such that any third-party buy-side operation that wants to use AdSense as the network is on equal footing with Google's own buy-side using AdSense. If anyone else can run that side of the equation better or for cheaper, they can now do so.
  - DudeOpotomus 3y ago
    There are and have always been lots and lots of options. It's up to the publisher to decide who they work with. But with the scale that Google holds, it's hard to compete with their money as they own the market and have a black box monopoly - there is no way to know what the actual floor of the bid is for instance, its set by Google, arbitrarily. In other words: They say it costs $5 per click or $25 CPM, they just make that figure up. There is no real market driving that cost. It's 100% made up to maximize Google's profits.
- t0mas88 3y ago
lisper 3y ago
AdWords launched as CPM. Source: I was the lead engineer on the first release of AdWords.

by h1fra 3y ago

Scoundreller 3y ago

I think YouTube is 50% ! But Adsense was capable of earning so much more than what most could do themselves that I was happy to “pay” them when I ran a semi-popular site. Though CPM can be gamed as well: put the ad at the bottom instead of the top. At the right instead of the left. Can be gamed by publishers too: create an ad that users see but don’t click on, but act on anyway. E.g. an ad for a cola and then you drink one from your fridge. I thought Google basically blended it all together when deciding which ad to present: a poorly clicked ad will need to pay more per click to get displayed.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

toast0 3y ago

I was working at Yahoo Travel from 2004-2011, and touched a lot of ad stuff, although some of it was indirect. Media/Display ads were normally CPM. Text ads were nearly all CPC (regardless of adwords, yahoo's search marketting, or y!travel's custom advertising market). Some display ads were CPC. There was a small amount of ads where it was CPA (cost per acquisition, advertiser only paid if the user purchased). CPA seemed like it was growing, but details of sales tracking and trust between parties probably gets in the way. Ocassionally we'd have some deal where we would have to put in links that might look like ads, but were unpaid.

no_wizard 3y ago
CPA seems like the fairest model from my laypersons vantage point. Is there a reason this isn't more popular on its face? Only paying for an ad when it works seems like you could charge more for the when it works part as a service (in this case Yahoo Ads or Google Ads) but it allows businesses to run ads at a higher rate if they're willing to give up more money on impression (where impression = someone buys)
- toast0 3y ago
  The big issue with CPA is attribution. It's one thing if you see the ad, click through, and make a booking in a single session. That's easy to attribute, if all the parties involved trust each other to do the tracking. (Parties include the advertiser, the publisher, the ad network(s), maybe even the advertising agency) But what if you clicked through the ad, and then close the window, but later come back and book through the advertised site? Now we also need to have come to an agreement about 'lookback window'. Maybe a fair lookback window is different for different markets. But it gets worse. What if you clicked through the ad on your phone, and then booked on your desktop? No tracking. Or even worse, what if it's a brand ad, and you come into the physical store and buy? Definitely no tracking. (well, some people try to get tracking for that, but it's pretty iffy)
  - kevinventullo 3y ago
    Also, tracking is getting increasingly harder.
- Macha 3y ago
  It shifts risk to the publisher. The publisher has already provided the service of making their user experience in aid of the advertisers goals. Should they get nothing for that? What if the advertiser just made an uninteresting ad? What if the advertiser's products are overpriced?
- rcxdude 3y ago
  It requires a lot of tracking and there's a lot of games that can be played as to who actually "made the sale"

DudeOpotomus 3y ago

No it wasn't but with a CPM you can actually optimize the ads for better results since the click is the only real measure of successful ad placement. Everything else happens after a click, so getting to the click is the most important target. As for %. They're bringing the customer, providing the tool, the payments and the collection of the money. All the publisher is doing is placing some code on their site. So 32% is actually a lot cheaper than a publisher hiring their own sales staff, buying their own ad servers, collecting and sorting the payment. Just so you know.

throwaway20222 3y ago
I wonder if it would be cheaper if there were more competitors to google in the market than there are currently. There are many things that I could outsource that would be cheaper than doing myself (build/buy a car. Buy a cheeseburger as opposed to producing all the ingredients myself.) I am equally interested in what that 32% fee would look like in a more open market and then say if it is cheap or expensive.
- jsnell 3y ago
  Isn't that exactly what this is addressing? This is splitting up AdSense such that any third-party buy-side operation that wants to use AdSense as the network is on equal footing with Google's own buy-side using AdSense. If anyone else can run that side of the equation better or for cheaper, they can now do so.
- DudeOpotomus 3y ago
  There are and have always been lots and lots of options. It's up to the publisher to decide who they work with. But with the scale that Google holds, it's hard to compete with their money as they own the market and have a black box monopoly - there is no way to know what the actual floor of the bid is for instance, its set by Google, arbitrarily. In other words: They say it costs $5 per click or $25 CPM, they just make that figure up. There is no real market driving that cost. It's 100% made up to maximize Google's profits.
t0mas88 3y ago

lisper 3y ago

AdWords launched as CPM. Source: I was the lead engineer on the first release of AdWords.