4 ms·

The point of the article is that the sale would happen regardless of the ad. Ie showing an ad on Google to someone who types 'Ebay' in the search string is a w

by omonra 12y ago

The point of the article is that the sale would happen regardless of the ad. Ie showing an ad on Google to someone who types 'Ebay' in the search string is a waste of money - since Ebay shows up as the first natural result anyways.

droopyEyelids 12y ago
However, this leads to the other flaw in the argument, where eBay has been the company most famous for abusing Google's ads, and using them in a completely nonsensical way. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-not-to-run-a-ppc-campaign-inspired-by-ebays-adwords-fail/61025/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-not-to-run-a-ppc-camp... I'm sure you've noticed that a search for any noun called forth an ad for eBay. You're enticed to "buy Dog Vomit on eBay" when your dog is sick. And then, even if it was something eBay plausibly sold, when you clicked through it'd take you to a generic eBay search page or, often, a landing page that was not useful at all.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  Well, there's nothing to say that eBay's research lab was using these horrible PPC ads in their tests. In fact, I would guess that they had to hold the landing page as a constant (e.g. homepage when "ebay" was the keyword), or otherwise account for that variable in the study design. For instance, the study notes that, for one test, they simply turned off their PPC campaigns for one geo and compared results to others. So, presumably, even if they were using their horrible PPC ads during this test, they would have been equally horrible across geos.
- rfergie 12y ago
  It is very unfortunate that the extremely interesting ebay study is being ignored by the SEM community because ebay has some bad adverts. The methodology and findings should be something that advertisers look at and learn from (i.e. that traditional methods of tracking do not always do a good job of showing value) but instead people just like to point fingers and call names
  - blauwbilgorgel 12y ago
    It is not ignored, because eBay has some bad adverts. It did attract significant attention more than a year ago (the study was conducted in 2012, and media reported on it in early 2013). "eBay has no idea if online ads work" would be a better title. Or "eBay can't get their online ads to work". If you looked at eBay's search advertisements in the last years you probably have seen very ridiculous ones, like: Love. Buy it cheap on eBay Low Prices. New and used. This is a significant waste of money, and seems endemic at eBay, not a rare occasion. Though it is too easy to point at this and discard the entire study, it is a relevant prior. As a control they take MSDN/Yahoo vs. Google. The control should be a different advertiser, not a different advertisement network. In the paper they mention removing the term "eBay Shoes" from their keywords, because they rank organically for that. They should have never added it, because it is a bad keyword for them. They should advertise on the brand name shoes they are selling. This ties back to the bad adverts by eBay: Fixing your mistakes and seeing change, is different from performing a controlled experiments on a healthy advertiser. They muse about "the types of consumer that may already be informed about the advertiser’s product". This adds a few problems: those customers may have been informed through the very advertisements they now claim don't work. Suddenly shutting down advertisements does not negate the effects of running advertisements years before that. The paper does not investigate the effect that ads have on brand recognition and brand trust. Usability tests show people clicking on advertisements first, because then they expect quality and a simple commercially interesting proposition. I do think the problem they are describing "some customers may be so aware of a brand, that advertising to them becomes worthless" is valid. Maybe ad networks could help here and implement a form of "demarketing" next to their "remarketing" options: Once a user has enough knowledge of the brand, stop advertising. But a better (and currently available) method could be to apply remarketing and give these power users tailored advertisements. An example could be a buyer's program, promoting a new product from a well-purchased brand, or a referral bonus. To continue offering them advertisements like "eBay shoes" does not make much sense.
    - rfergie 12y ago
      I am aware of the significant attention this paper got about a year ago. In my filter bubble (and I am in a massive filter bubble with regards to this kind of thing) the attention was similar to the rest of your comment - focusing on ebays failures of execution rather than the failure of measurement. Other advertisers do not make the same mistakes as ebay with regards to landing pages, adverts or keywords selection but many make the same mistakes when it comes to measuring their advertising value. Now, perhaps the errors caused by faulty measurement are not as important for other advertisers and I can see why this might be the case (for the reasons you list about how ebay is running their PPC) but what should be an opportunity for the SEM industry to look at how their work in valued and measured has instead turned into something else > As a control they take MSDN/Yahoo vs. Google They also used a geographic split as a control. E.g. if in the past areas A and B have performed similarly then pick one of them at random to stop showing ads in. AdWords geo-targeting combined with this technique is a way for other advertisers - regardless of scale - to run similar tests. But we won't see many doing this because of the attitude that it is ebays execution that sucks rather than their measurement
paulgb 12y ago
It's worth noting that display advertisers can and do account for this by running a control group that sees public service announcements instead of the ads they'd normally run.
rumcajz 12y ago
Isn't it a way to prevent eBay's competition to show ads on 'eBay' keyword?
- omonra 12y ago
  There are still plenty of other spots in paid results for the competition :)

by omonra 12y ago

droopyEyelids 12y ago

However, this leads to the other flaw in the argument, where eBay has been the company most famous for abusing Google's ads, and using them in a completely nonsensical way. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-not-to-run-a-ppc-campaign-inspired-by-ebays-adwords-fail/61025/ http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-not-to-run-a-ppc-camp... I'm sure you've noticed that a search for any noun called forth an ad for eBay. You're enticed to "buy Dog Vomit on eBay" when your dog is sick. And then, even if it was something eBay plausibly sold, when you clicked through it'd take you to a generic eBay search page or, often, a landing page that was not useful at all.

unclebucknasty 12y ago
Well, there's nothing to say that eBay's research lab was using these horrible PPC ads in their tests. In fact, I would guess that they had to hold the landing page as a constant (e.g. homepage when "ebay" was the keyword), or otherwise account for that variable in the study design. For instance, the study notes that, for one test, they simply turned off their PPC campaigns for one geo and compared results to others. So, presumably, even if they were using their horrible PPC ads during this test, they would have been equally horrible across geos.
rfergie 12y ago
It is very unfortunate that the extremely interesting ebay study is being ignored by the SEM community because ebay has some bad adverts. The methodology and findings should be something that advertisers look at and learn from (i.e. that traditional methods of tracking do not always do a good job of showing value) but instead people just like to point fingers and call names
- blauwbilgorgel 12y ago
  It is not ignored, because eBay has some bad adverts. It did attract significant attention more than a year ago (the study was conducted in 2012, and media reported on it in early 2013). "eBay has no idea if online ads work" would be a better title. Or "eBay can't get their online ads to work". If you looked at eBay's search advertisements in the last years you probably have seen very ridiculous ones, like: Love. Buy it cheap on eBay Low Prices. New and used. This is a significant waste of money, and seems endemic at eBay, not a rare occasion. Though it is too easy to point at this and discard the entire study, it is a relevant prior. As a control they take MSDN/Yahoo vs. Google. The control should be a different advertiser, not a different advertisement network. In the paper they mention removing the term "eBay Shoes" from their keywords, because they rank organically for that. They should have never added it, because it is a bad keyword for them. They should advertise on the brand name shoes they are selling. This ties back to the bad adverts by eBay: Fixing your mistakes and seeing change, is different from performing a controlled experiments on a healthy advertiser. They muse about "the types of consumer that may already be informed about the advertiser’s product". This adds a few problems: those customers may have been informed through the very advertisements they now claim don't work. Suddenly shutting down advertisements does not negate the effects of running advertisements years before that. The paper does not investigate the effect that ads have on brand recognition and brand trust. Usability tests show people clicking on advertisements first, because then they expect quality and a simple commercially interesting proposition. I do think the problem they are describing "some customers may be so aware of a brand, that advertising to them becomes worthless" is valid. Maybe ad networks could help here and implement a form of "demarketing" next to their "remarketing" options: Once a user has enough knowledge of the brand, stop advertising. But a better (and currently available) method could be to apply remarketing and give these power users tailored advertisements. An example could be a buyer's program, promoting a new product from a well-purchased brand, or a referral bonus. To continue offering them advertisements like "eBay shoes" does not make much sense.
  - rfergie 12y ago
    I am aware of the significant attention this paper got about a year ago. In my filter bubble (and I am in a massive filter bubble with regards to this kind of thing) the attention was similar to the rest of your comment - focusing on ebays failures of execution rather than the failure of measurement. Other advertisers do not make the same mistakes as ebay with regards to landing pages, adverts or keywords selection but many make the same mistakes when it comes to measuring their advertising value. Now, perhaps the errors caused by faulty measurement are not as important for other advertisers and I can see why this might be the case (for the reasons you list about how ebay is running their PPC) but what should be an opportunity for the SEM industry to look at how their work in valued and measured has instead turned into something else > As a control they take MSDN/Yahoo vs. Google They also used a geographic split as a control. E.g. if in the past areas A and B have performed similarly then pick one of them at random to stop showing ads in. AdWords geo-targeting combined with this technique is a way for other advertisers - regardless of scale - to run similar tests. But we won't see many doing this because of the attitude that it is ebays execution that sucks rather than their measurement

paulgb 12y ago

It's worth noting that display advertisers can and do account for this by running a control group that sees public service announcements instead of the ads they'd normally run.

rumcajz 12y ago

Isn't it a way to prevent eBay's competition to show ads on 'eBay' keyword?

omonra 12y ago
There are still plenty of other spots in paid results for the competition :)