Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For example, a click on an ad for digital cameras on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.
[edited by: markus007 at 8:08 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]
only? i may have is why advertisers not seen lowering of CPC
from where we are looking
1 advertisers paying same
2 publishers getting less
steve
I honestly believe if publishers could see evidence of number 2 they would not be so upset and would see it as a good move for long term viability of adsense
They really should have a seperate bidding system for search and content ads.
The only automated system that can calculate how well ads are performing is called 'the free market'. Advertisers don't need help judging how much to pay they are smart enough to figure it out for themselves. It's just that at the moment they are forced to pay the same for two clearly different systems. This means they are probably paying less for search ads and more for content ads which is what Google is trying to correct.
There is so much more to getting a click through to your site than just an online purchase. I have advertised new community sites when they first went up to get people to join. Many business don't want you to buy straight away. The only thing you can say for certain is that advertisers want you to visit their site after reading what they say in their adverts.
My site has not been particularly affected as all the ads are for products people buy immediately online. I was however planning on building a site about an industry that doesn't operate in this way as the products are very expensive - they are willing to buy expensive ads though (although google won't value them as such).
This has to stop. It makes the game far to complex for advertisers - someone who just wants the visitors to download a form is going to get very cheap ads and those selling directly online are going to subsidize them pay paying more than a unregulated market would allow.
Publisher1 will have a better EPC than Publisher2 right now, until we process the conversion data again and see if the situation is different. Publisher2's clicks are less valuable than Publisher1's, since overall, they converted less well.
They cannot track or even know all conversion models and not everything can be handled by an algorithm.
Take a lead generation example. What happens if Publisher2 sends more motivated leads who tend to call rather than fill out a form. And what if those follow through with conversion better than somebody who does fill out a form. This IS the case with me. I get so many different types of leads, I do track conversions, phone calls are much more motivated buyers that do NOT get tracked. You cannot make all-encompassing statements.
The only automated system that can calculate how well ads are performing is called 'the free market'. Advertisers don't need help judging how much to pay they are smart enough to figure it out for themselves. It's just that at the moment they are forced to pay the same for two clearly different systems.
Not two different systems--more than half a dozen, by my calculation.
You may not think that SERP ads have much in common with "content ads," but what do the following "contnt ads" have in common with each other:
1) Ads on niche or special-interest editorial sites
2) Ads on general news/entertainment/portal sites
3) Ads on forums
4) Ads on e-commerce sites
5) Ads on parked domains
6) Ads on gmail
There's likely to be far greater variation in ROI between, say, an ad on DPReview (a digital photography review site) and a gmail message than there is between an ad on DPReview and a parked domain or a gmail screen. So just having a separate bidding structure for "search" and "content" woudn't make much sense.
At the end of the day, advertisers will want to bid on whatever matches the ROI. Paying the same for forums and ecommerce sites will end up with a bid price somewhere in between the acutal value of a bid for each type.
A simple first step would be divide search from content as they already have it separated by their opt out options. Ideally they would have lots of options and have reviewed all the sites to decide which category they should fit in.
I just don't think they can create a system based on the data they have available that can accurately detect what the bid price should be. It undermines the whole idea of having an auction.
someone who just wants the visitors to download a form is going to get very cheap ads
I believe that this is absolutely not true in the current state of information we have, except in one case - all of this someone's ads by miracle appear only on very badly converting sites. Then, that someone will get cheap ads - but bad conversion, so cost / conversion is likely to remain the SAME.
What matters, most of the time, is cost per conversion.
By the way, conversion tracking allows to track Leads and Sales separately.
I'm not trying to be devil's advocate - those changes divided my own income by a lot - but I'm just trying to figure out the trends.
With the data they apparently get and record, Google has enough of it to calculate the real ROI-ness (I.e. value of clicks and/or leads) of each publisher.
Fair point and post, but what about this scenario:
Publisher has a site about big-fee services. Most ads are for relevant big-fee service companies - no conversion tracking is possible and/or done. A couple of ads are for half-as-relevant "click and buy" products. A few curious clicks on these produce no sales. Google rates that publisher as a poor converter. But in reality he's delivering super leads to those big-ticket companies.
Perhaps Google uses on-page factors to compensate, but...
But there does have to be some sort of discrimination with publshers. Just take two examples:
1. A highly informative information site in a niche field, dozens or hundreds of pages, a great education resource. And then somewhere on it are also adsense links to advertisers, if a person is inclined to buy. No trickery or foolery.
2. A site that comes up under a fairly lucrative keyword, with one main page that is really a trap page. The only way for a visitor to escape is to back out, or click on an adsense link which is the only link that is very visible.
If you were an advertiser, would you be willing to pay the same rates for clicks from both of these sites?
