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Is Online Advertising Worthless? (zerohedge.com)
turkeydance shares a story from ZeroHedge:
Category 1 storm clouds are gathering over what has traditionally been one of the most lucrative, and perhaps only profitable, sectors to come out of Silicon Valley in decades: online advertising. Two months ago, it was P&G which fired the first shot across the "adtech" bow when not long after it announced it was slashing its digital ad spending because it thought it was not getting the kind of return on investment it desired, it made a striking discovery: "We didn't see a reduction in the growth rate." CFO Jon Moeller said "What that tells me is that that spending that we cut was largely ineffective"...
So fast forward to last week, when during Thursday's Global Retailing Conference organized by Goldman Sachs, Restoration Hardware delightfully colorful CEO, Gary Friedman, divulged the following striking anecdote about the company's online marketing strategy, and the state of online ad spending in general... What Friedman revealed - in brief - was the following: "we've found out that 98% of our business was coming from 22 words. So, wait, we're buying 3,200 words and 98% of the business is coming from 22 words. What are the 22 words? And they said, well, it's the word Restoration Hardware and the 21 ways to spell it wrong, okay?"
Stated simply, the vast, vast majority of online ad spending is wasted, chasing clicks that simply are not there....One wonders how long before all retailers - most of whom are notoriously strapped for revenues and profits courtesy of Amazon - and other "power users" of online advertising, do a similar back of the envelope analysis, and find that they, like RH, are getting a bang for only 2% of their buck?
So fast forward to last week, when during Thursday's Global Retailing Conference organized by Goldman Sachs, Restoration Hardware delightfully colorful CEO, Gary Friedman, divulged the following striking anecdote about the company's online marketing strategy, and the state of online ad spending in general... What Friedman revealed - in brief - was the following: "we've found out that 98% of our business was coming from 22 words. So, wait, we're buying 3,200 words and 98% of the business is coming from 22 words. What are the 22 words? And they said, well, it's the word Restoration Hardware and the 21 ways to spell it wrong, okay?"
Stated simply, the vast, vast majority of online ad spending is wasted, chasing clicks that simply are not there....One wonders how long before all retailers - most of whom are notoriously strapped for revenues and profits courtesy of Amazon - and other "power users" of online advertising, do a similar back of the envelope analysis, and find that they, like RH, are getting a bang for only 2% of their buck?
When you search for a company or website on google there is an advertisement for it right above the search result taking you directly to the web site you were looking for. I always click on the search result because clicking on an ad is just weird to me, even though they both likely take me to the same spot. But what is the point of buying an ad like this if they are already trying to get to your site in the first place? Why convince someone to do something they are already doing? Are they afraid another company is going to buy the search ad and someone is going to randomly click on another website instead of the one they were specifically looking for?
Advertisers are paying for ads that are viewed and clicked on by bots, not humans; and ads are placed by thousands of automated “ad exchanges” that are out of control of the advertiser, and on sites and pages that don’t match the advertiser’s products.
Over the past 5 years, spending on online adverting has more than doubled but retail spending by consumers has only increased by an average of 2.4% per year. Digital advertising – despite the lure of Facebook and the like – cannot induce consumers to spend more and increase the size of the overall pie for advertisers. It can only, at best, divide up the pie differently.
Spend some time with business leaders and you'll find that they're mostly clueless assholes, placed in their positions by wealthy families, running mostly brain-dead companies that make money due to some legacy accident.
Depressingly accurate with zero hyperbole.
They don't need to create a negative view of Silicon Valley when the companies are doing that so eagerly themselves.
Now most of those companies are SJW-converged and politics is job #1, no sane person is going to look at them in a positive light again. It's probably no coincidence that the two least evil big tech companies are based in Seattle.
And, heck, what kind of world are we living in when Microsoft is the second LEAST evil big tech company?
"Dollars in, dollars out" doesn't tell you you which ads are more cost-effective
You have a specific landing page for each ad. Then you track that contact through to the purchase, whether that is online, or through an offline sales lead. You know how much the ad cost, and you know the revenue generated. You subtract out your COGS, and if the result is positive, your ad is making money.
This is advertising 101. If they don't even know how to do ads right, then P&G is run by morons.