
The mysterious disappearance of Google's click metric - PolandKid
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-googles-click-metric/
======
Scoundreller
Ugh, one of the graphs is for YoY decline in CPC rates, but it it shows 2015
at the _right_ and 2019 at the far _left_. Who does that?

And it shows it by quarter, so is this a rolling window?

Then:

> As long as Google can keep growing the blue line -- growth of paid clicks
> faster than the red line its ad click deflation -- then it is golden.

> Every three months Google has to find faster ways of expanding the total
> number of paid clicks by as much as 66%.

NO! The blue line, from the 68% value, was their growth in click quantity. And
the direct comparison between CPC and clicks isn’t valid: GOOG could have the
less clicks but increase its CPC revenue if it targets poorly. Total revenue
is what we should look at.

Other than all this, this seems to be much ado about nothing. If GOOG can
better target ads, they’ll get more clicks. And when an ad pays well,
publishers create content that will show that ad, driving down rates but
increasing clicks.

And GOOG’s ad growth is international. Where GDP is lower; as CPC rates will
go lower. And international increasingly favours CPM in my opinion. A fast
food chain or a brand of soap doesn’t need clickthroughs.

~~~
dhimes
_And when an ad pays well, publishers create content that will show that ad_

{rant: This- this right here- sums up my frustration with the evolution of the
web. Getting ready to launch a new site, I looked around a bit at "SEO." The
push was exactly backwards. It was, "given that you have some keywords you
want to "optimize" for, here's the web content you need."

That's exactly backwards, and leads to people producing junk just to get
clicks because certain keywords "perform well."

What we need is, "write something authentic, then find the keywords that will
lead people to see it." Sure, make sure you put the keywords in the right
places like headings and such, but the focus should be on writing something
authentic, not noise. }

~~~
Scoundreller
Oh, I accept all that.

When I first started writing, I discovered what was popular versus not.
Authentic content that nobody read didn’t seem like a good use of time.

Writing about how shitty my current credit card was and which I found to be
better was very profitable. Reviewing a keyboard was not.

But having said that, some of the most valuable content was useful, but flew
under the radar of other writers. E.g. how to navigate a particular government
office’s procedures.

Google did a lot to help your case when they targeted ads based on the _user_
and not the content. IE: showing you finance ads on non-finance websites. That
really helped out publishers in otherwise not-too-profitable topics.

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zenincognito
After 10 years of spending 100k on average per month, we stopped spending in
2019 and put money into cold calling. Conversions tripled and we could only
spend half our yearly budget in our call campaign. Google is expensive and
returns now suck even more than they did in 2017.

~~~
busterarm
Not accusing, but it's still worth considering - could it just have been that
your targeting was bad?

I worked in a heavily regulated industry with some of the Top 10 most
expensive keywords and we spent about $150 million a year on advertising with
a solid 1/4 of it going to digital (almost exclusively Google) and it was
worth it. Digital spend got customer acquisition costs way way down and we
spent significant effort into trying to _reduce_ our call center operations
(mostly via automation).

It's important to invest in people to crunch the numbers and get your
targeting right.

TV was still king though.

~~~
6nf
Facebook is killing it. It's harder than ever to justify spending a lot of
money on Google.

~~~
busterarm
This is the same Facebook that inflated view numbers?

We ran Facebook ads when I was there and they just didn't convert at all. It
was pissing money away. We got better engagement from posting on Twitter for
free.

~~~
RandallBrown
Just a little anecdote. I've never purchased anything I've seen in an online
ad _except_ Facebook and Instagram.

Their targeting is so good that I almost don't mind seeing the ads.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
Interesting. For me it's almost the opposite: if I see it on FB/Instagram, my
first thought is it's a scam (and I'm often right).

~~~
londons_explore
If you click those scammy ads to see if they're a scam, Facebooks AI will see
you are interested in them, and show you more scammy ads.

~~~
slig
You don't even have to click it. Watch a Instagram ad to the end and they know
you're interested and will show more of it.

~~~
rickur
Yes you're right

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DevKoala
I am not rejecting the author's analysis, but the industry is moving towards
cost per conversion. Even marketers for small time ad agencies have gotten
savvy and realized that the click is nothing but a proxy. Also, I never
realized Google actually posted CPC numbers, I don't track B2C in depth, but
considering the amount of synthetic traffic, CPC numbers can be meaningless.

~~~
fogetti
I think you are conflating the seller and buyer side. In Google's case the CPC
is actually a revenue and they do not see it as cost as the marketers you
described. So from marketers' POV, yes, conversion makes more sense. From
Google's POV they couldn't care less I think.

And the important thing is the trend, not the actually quarterly numbers
anyway. Which I assume would be the same even if we took a look at the
conversions.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Google absolutely cares about conversions. Customers that don't see
conversions will eventually stop doing business. Iirc in the early days of
google analytics one of the much touted features was the ability to connect
google ad clicks to the conversion funnel.

~~~
Gustomaximus
Also Google cares about conversions because if they can get people tracking
down funnel they can better optimise to get to to pay more for less
impressions/clicks, and the now unused space can be sold elsewhere. When done
right it's win/win.

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H8crilA
I wish that shareholders would frequently vote on what data is included in the
financial reports. Either that or have the SEC be much much more pressing on
the issue.

Perhaps even a minority of shareholders (say 30%) should be allowed to enforce
data publication rules.

Why should the management decide on which data is disclosed and which is not?
It should rather be entirely decided by the management's supervisors, this is
the shareholders or the regulators. Makes no sense to me otherwise.

"Yes, it's all your money that we manage here, but you can't look at it. You
can only look at what we allow you to look at. Now go model our company and
figure out what our stock should be worth without whatever it is that we don't
give you."

~~~
flokie
The SEC does decide.... [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sec-wants-to-
know-why-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sec-wants-to-know-why-
google-doesnt-report-youtube-revenue-2018-02-26)

~~~
H8crilA
I mean yeah, but they should be much more pressing.

And I doubt they have enough bandwidth to monitor the thousands of publicly
traded companies, so would make much more sense to just legislate a standard
way of a shareholder mechanism for explicit control of the non-GAAP metrics.

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leonidasv
Not related to the article, but this video autoplay is super annoying. An
alternative version for those who also find this annoying:
[https://outline.com/5Vd9BS](https://outline.com/5Vd9BS)

~~~
lucasverra
firefox has autplay off by default.

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cavisne
These graphs suck, but it looks like last quarter was a much lower decrease
than the past. That doesn’t fit the articles argument that CPC is falling off
a cliff and google is trying to hide it.

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corentin88
Explains a bit the recent redesign of ads in SERP. Google seems to struggle to
keep growing Adwords - it still make an astounding amount of money still.

~~~
C1sc0cat
More competition from Amazon whose ad revenue went up 40% last year

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Thorman
If these graphs were segmented by device, network (search vs. display/youtube)
and the country it would tell the story. Users are doing more searches and
clicking more as a result of the convenience of mobile devices. Desktop users
were and are more intent-driven (worth more to advertisers), but now comprise
a much smaller percentage of the total. Display and Youtube impression
inventory may be becoming a larger percentage of total, but has lower value
than search thereby bringing down the average. As stated by another user
international expansion into lower income regions would lead to lower average
CPC as well.

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DailyHN
Desensitization to ads caused by perverse tracking and targeting. It's not
getting better.

~~~
DevKoala
There is no such thing. People still buy online marketed products a magnitude
times more than non-marketed products. In fact, advertisement techniques are
now so advanced that consumers believe they were not "influenced" in their
purchasing decisions. "Hahaha, my ad-blocker and 7 proxies make me un-
trackable"

~~~
JohnFen
> advertisement techniques are now so advanced that consumers believe they
> were not "influenced" in their purchasing decisions.

This isn't a new thing. People have believed that for the entire existence of
advertising, and it has never been true.

~~~
perl4ever
I just checked, and Facebook is advertising "The Uber of Snow Plows" to me. I
can't be influenced because I don't have a clue what it is. Next ad is
"Liberty Tax Service", which is guaranteed not to sell me anything because I
do my own taxes and am unwilling to pay anything since the Intuit scandal.
Next one is trolling for victims of "clergy abuse"; I've gone to church maybe
2-3 times in my life and don't know any clergy. Next is sildenafil, next is
State Farm, next is Taco Bell, all of which I am extremely aware of existing
and do not plan to ever purchase.

There _are_ a bunch of things relative to my interests as a consumer, because
I follow some local businesses. But they aren't strictly speaking ads. The ads
are complete garbage.

