[webmasterworld.com...]
I'd invite your participation, input, insights and comments, both in the linked thread and here.
That said, I'd appreciate all attempts to "stay on thread" - answering the central questions - versus expressing related grievances, alternate solutions, etc.
Have you visited? Why? What did you learn? How did that 'learning' effect your thinking?
I'd invite your reply here or in the linked thread.
Affect. Effect. Arrgghhh!
I have learned that in both cases it's generally about "me". Adwords- how to keep my keywords alive and why my ads aren't showing. Adsense- how can I make more money and keep from being banned. This is to be expected.
Both forums have a ton of valuable info when you sift through the chatter.
Freq---
Those who advertise care about their ROI.
Those who use ads on their site care about their ROI.
You won't find a lot of AdWords users asking about AdSense users' ROI, nor t'other way 'round. There's no money in it for either party.
AdWords users want to maximize the RESULT of the click.
AdSense users want to maximize the NUMBER of clicks.
While it would be a better world if AdSense users really cared about how well the advertisers were doing (or t'other way 'round), it is not really that useful to either party.
AdWords users care about quality leads and conversions.
AdSense users care about traffic and click-throughs.
These are nearly mutually exclusive goals, as an AdWords user optimizing their ads for performance has no idea which AdSense sites their ad is showing on and AdSense users will never have the back-side data available to the AdWords user.
AdSense is for spending no money to make a little money.
AdWords is for (hopefully) spending little money to make more money.
There is no inherent reason why a user of one should invest the time learning about the other, unless you're trying to troubleshoot something like a billing issue. Or unless you are involved with both programs.
(I posted a much longer comment in the original thread.)
I do read threads in both the AdWords and AdSense forums, to learn how to better implement my various applications. But I do not expect either forum to provide anything other than info about its topic.
Just as I do not expect a scraper site to offer enlightenment, so, too, do I look to these two forums to provide useful info within the scope of their niches.
Just like I don't advertise any less even though I see that 99% of the websites seem like they are 'made for adsense'.
The only thing that matters is the customers I get and what they do.
I can't find the thread, there is one somewhere about what publishers want vs what advertisers want.
EX:
Publishers: CTR
Advertisers: ROI
If you know where it is, please post it
So, Jeff's post in AdSense got me to thinking about AdSense - and it's just over two years old. Amazing that something that seems a staple of the internet is still so young.
This thread: [webmasterworld.com...] still speaks many truths.
When comparing content ads to search ads, you'll want to look at sellthrough and ROI rather than just clickthrough. The initial data that we've seen (working with several external advertisers, plus content ads from Google Groups) indicates that CTR is typically a little lower on content ads, but that the conversion rate puts ROI back on par with search ads. It will take time for everyone to gather more data, but I think it will help to use the end-to-end test of ROI instead of CTR, especially since CTR is an approximation of user interest, but ROI is the final indicator that determines if an ad is worth it.
From GoogleGuy - how can you argue with that?
Fruitless waste of time unless Google does some major improvements and rethinks the whole process.
FYI, I get better results from the content channel than I do from Google searches.
I think the point you're missing WebWork, is I won't advertise any more if they spent all their time desperately thinking about how to convert for me.
Blaze, I don't think Webwork was suggesting that publishers should be thinking how to convert for advertisers. The real message, IMHO, is that publishers should think about the long-term consequences for both parties when they crank out junk pages, inflate clickthrough rates by disguising ads as editorial content, etc.
Maybe made for adsense websites will end up to be the highest converters?
The point is, we should be lobbying for more accurate measurement, not our own personal views on how to convert a customer.
We need more proof, not more theories.