And if I’m not mistaken, the audience is now also a lot bigger, right? Would this not imply that this evens each other out? The therapist of the article could just maintain her bid price, not?
Yeah but clearly the ads being bid up are worth it to someone, no? Is the issue that the limited supply is now being taken up by therapists charging more than her, i.e. those who can bear higher costs of advertising?
And if so ... what exactly is the workable alternative? This is all just market forces. The cost of advertising and acquiring new business has been around for much longer than Google.
They aren't even being taken up by therapists charging more than her. They are being taken up by corporations providing online access to therapists for substantially less than she charges. The consumer is actually benefiting.
She charges $250 a session. Lets say she sees 6 patients per day generating $1500 gross revenue a day. She spends $20 a day in ads which works out to around 1.3% of gross revenues spent on advertising. That is an extremely low amount spent on advertising. The US Small Business Administration recommendation for businesses with revenues less than $5 million per year is to spend 7-8% of gross revenues on marketing.
That's a good point and thanks for doing the numbers. Maybe she just has unrealistic expectations of how much is normal to spend on advertising? It sounds like it. She should definitely be able to afford to spend more than a platform like BetterHelp, which is making a lot less per consultation than she is.
isn't adding shelf space analogous to adding more ads? I mean I haven't really kept track but I am always seeing complaints on HN about how many more ads there on google nowadays so they must add some shelf space.
