MikeNoLastName - 8:12 pm on Nov 23, 2004 (gmt 0)

I have been looking at a few trends, particularly on newly added pages, and in light of visi's earlier post (msg 11) I had an observation.

It appears to me that, IF G is indeed using past clickthru data to determine future ads for a particular page, then they seem to be optimizing on the number of CLICKTHRUS rather than INCOME or effective CPM. I have observed what appear to be excellent ads, with high CPM and decent clickthru rates, suddenly being replaced with more off-topic ads, with much lower CPM but higher CTRs. I've ruled out the ad accounts running out of money or pulling their ads from our site unless they can do so on a page by page basis. Is it that their algorithm is short-sighted and only optimizes for CTR ASSUMING the rest will follow? Is this simply an innocent all-out effort to optimize ad appropriateness (theoretically directly proportional to CTR) to the detriment of all else, like our profits? Or could there be some other unknown reason like increasing their own click results numbers for shareholders? What other benefit could they possibly see from higher clickthrus, but lower revenue.

Their policy of delaying channel results 24-48 hrs and not reporting which ads are actually getting clicked on makes it much more difficult to accurately messure unit productivity and optimize pages than it could otherwise be.