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This makes the deeply flawed assumption that the only time advertisements have value is if someone clicks them.
by citricsquid 13y ago
This makes the deeply flawed assumption that the only time advertisements have value is if someone clicks them.
- meritt 13y agoBrand awareness campaigns and media buys would be the sort of exception you're talking about and you're absolutely right. Or if you're a company who buys a ton of fraudulent traffic in order to inflate your Alexa/Quantcast/Hitwise/etc rankings, then every impression counts as well. However, if the advertiser is like the bulk of online advertising (e.g. one of the many for-profit online-degree-mills or someone pushing the latest weight loss pills) they tend to very aggressively optimize towards a desired CPA and eliminating non-converting traffic is always the goal. A better CVR creates happier advertisers which leads to higher bids & budgets and then higher publisher payouts.
- dredmorbius 13y agoIt's possible for advertising to have negative value. There are brands / stores / products I've avoided specifically because of the advertising, whether it was annoying, disgusting, insulting, belittling, bigoted, or whatever. I've got several examples in mind as I speak.
- tomjen3 13y agoThey do only have value when somebody pays attention to them and I am not ever going to buy a no-operation solution for my none existing male pattern baldness, nor am I interested in "losing weight using $N wierd tips discovered by a serial rapist victim". The truth is ads mostly don't have value -- but the worse your product is the more you need ads.