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Microsoft The Internet

Microsoft Says Not All Ad Clicks Are Created Equal 186

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the more-tracking-bloat-coming-to-a-site-near-you dept.
kyle6477 writes to share that Microsoft is hoping to change the way advertising is thought of, and ultimately valued, online. Their new Engagement ROI tool tries to track a user's ad clicking habits and distribute the credit over all of the ads that led to an eventual sale as opposed to the last ad clicked getting all the credit. "Say a consumer sees an ad for a product in a video ad one day, and then clicks on a text ad to visit the retailer's site the next day, and then eventually sees a banner ad that leads to a purchase. All of the monetary credit tends to go to the text link that was clicked on."
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Microsoft Says Not All Ad Clicks Are Created Equal More

Microsoft Says Not All Ad Clicks Are Created Equal

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  • Equal ads (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wowsers ( 1151731 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:06PM (#22548200) Journal
    Microsoft are wrong, I don't have any ads to click, so they are in fact all equal to me.

    • Re:Equal ads (Score:5, Funny)

      by sakdoctor ( 1087155 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:14PM (#22548338) Homepage
      You mean all ads are equally blocked?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I know! Advertisements on the internet? There's living in the 20th century, I haven't seen any ads on line for years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kyle6477 ( 1174231 ) *
      I agree. Adblockplus FTW! I think a gradual shift in importance in online advertising is taking place...

      • Re:Equal ads (Score:4, Informative)

        by kc2keo ( 694222 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:28PM (#22548558) Homepage
        Yep, I use Adblock Plus too but along with noscript. Haven't seen a AD since installation. Even if I didn't have these plugins installed I never click on any ADs. The ads that bother me the most are the ones that flash like a strobe light, make noises (those have scared the hell out of me before), are in the way of articles I am reading, and the ADs that are popup's...

        • Re:Equal ads (Score:5, Funny)

          by haystor ( 102186 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:31PM (#22548598)
          I seem to keep getting ads for AdBlock whenever slashdot does a story involving ads.
          • Now are you getting ads or are you getting word of mouth advertising.

            Companies pay for ads, word of mouth is free.

            • Re:Equal ads (Score:5, Interesting)

              by haystor ( 102186 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @03:15PM (#22549972)
              To spell it out...every time anything on slashdot mentions ads, the first 100 or so posts are people commenting on how they haven't seen ads in years. They make these comments like the signal to noise ratio needed to satisfy their massive intellect needs to approach 100%. Then of course they proceed to fill up all the comments with the noise of one person saying "Adblock..." and 99 saying, "me too".

              - I don't care that you use AdBlock. If it's an ask slashdot about how to block ads, by all means post in response to that.
              - I also don't care about all of you that don't even have a tv but must comment on every tv story.
              - Nor do I care that Go is deeper than chess unless we're already discussing both of them (not just one).

    • You thief! (Score:4, Funny)

      by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary@@@yahoo...com> on Monday February 25, 2008 @02:57PM (#22549762) Journal
      By not watching ads, you are stealing from the hard working website owners and operators like CmdrTaco here. I mean, due to lack of funds the poor guy has obviously had to hire brain damaged chimpanzees as editors.

      I keed, I keed, you guys are great, don't cancel my account please. ;)

  • How does this degrade? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pembo13 ( 770295 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:11PM (#22548278) Homepage
    I barely trust javascript from Google, I trust even less stuff from Microsoft, so how well would their algorithms work without client side scripts?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hedwards ( 940851 )
      That's largely my thought on this. The only way this can possibly work is if MS is using tracking cookies to follow people around.

      I'm fine with ads on the internet if it means that I don't have to pay for the content and that the hosting fees are covered with the earnings. But if it's an obnoxious ,browser crashing flash ad, uses offsite javascript or sets tracking cookies, it's banned from my browser.

      Unfortunately for marketers, that means that I don't see most of the ads, because the site that "hosts" the
    • Third party cookies, same way everybody else does it. The data processing is all done on their back-end, which I can imagine is some impressively huge set of servers... that's really what's holding back this ROI calculation, not the concept of it, but the fact that you have to shovel through terabytes of data going back weeks for each conversion to actually pull it off.

      Microsoft got this capability, BTW, from their recent Aquantive acquisition. Google probably got some similar capability from DoubleClick, b

  • My guess (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheRecklessWanderer ( 929556 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:11PM (#22548286) Journal
    Who are the people who click on adds? Are they the same people who buy the products sold by spam?

    I think that perhaps click through addds are a means to an end, in that they don't sell any product themselves but create awareness.

    Once again tho, who are the people that actually buy something from a click through add, exempting porn of course, which everyone buys.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mrxak ( 727974 )
      It's these guys: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/12/2037223 [slashdot.org]

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by wcpalmer ( 1232598 )
      How on earth did you manage to misspell "ads" three times in a single post (twice with an extra 'd', and once with two extra 'd's)?

      I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of people who use the Internet for porn do not pay for it. It's not exactly hard to come by.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      I think that perhaps click through addds...

      Perhaps that was a typo, but if so it was a rather clever one on several levels.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      They are your aunt ellie, grandma Butters, and Cousin Tom with the lazy eye. your hair stylist, your auto mechanic, and many times your accountant.

      Lots of people are distracted by shiney. Some are so bad they infect their machine with a crapload of spyware within a day. All of this comes from the damned webads. They click on the viagra ad, the you won a free vacation ad and the "your computer is at risk russian spies are putting child porn on your computer now! click here to save yourself!!!!!" ad's.

      T

    • Who are the people who click on adds? Are they the same people who buy the products sold by spam?

      I've clicked on ads. No, I don't buy products sold by spam. I click on ads because - and this really is mind-numbingly obvious - sometimes I'm interested in what the advertisers have to offer. Most frequently the ads I click on are on search result pages; I guess they're most likely to be relevant to what I'm looking for.

      If I'm looking for, say, a new phone and I see an advert for the phone I want why woul

  • Just an exuse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SpaceLifeForm ( 228190 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:11PM (#22548298)
    To track all of your traffic.

    • Re:Just an exuse (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:48PM (#22548828)
      Why would they want to track all of your traffic if not for advertising purposes?
    • To me, this topic just means that ms are trying to commercialize (without running afoul of laws) what NSA, DIA, DIS, and others in the alphabet soup intelligence community have been doing for some years, or WISH they could do in the next two years.

      But, since ISPs are able to slow your traffic enough to brute force any encryption or sniff out any torrents you're using (don't be so smug as to think the ISP isn't throttling your traffic to ferret out your encryption keys...), what's so hard about mshaft and ot

  • Wasted Effort (Score:5, Insightful)

    by immcintosh ( 1089551 ) <(gro.hsotnicmnai) (ta) (todhsals)> on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:12PM (#22548310) Homepage
    This really seems like a wasted effort. Presumably, it is either the case that the ad that was clicked on was more convincing than the other ads, causing the purchaser to finally cave in, or it was no more convincing and just benefited from the luck of the draw. If it was the case that this individual ad was what convinced the consumer, I see no reason it shouldn't get all the credit. If it was not the case that this individual ad was more convincing, then when you take the total ad revenue on average, none of the ads should be getting more revenue than any of the others.

    To put it another way, if one ad is generating a lot more revenue than other ads, there's a reason for this. Whether it be placement, timing, appropriate context, better design, or whatever. If none of these things are the case, then I submit that the ads should all be generating equivalent revenue.

    In short, Microsoft is developing a solution in search of a problem. Either that or it's just another attempt at tracking the consumer's every last act, hidden under a patina of equitable distribution of ad revenue.

    • Re:Wasted Effort (Score:5, Insightful)

      by teknopurge ( 199509 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:16PM (#22548370) Homepage
      Not true.

      This is in fact an issue we, as advertisers, have been dealing with for a long time. One ad does not sell a product or service, rather it takes multiple avenues to get a message across. If this tool helps up view thread within an ad campaign and at what points the campaign has different levels of impact, it would allow us to tune our ad-spend to a very granular level.

      Things like Adwords is a large toilet that we used to flush money down. Anything that makes our $$$ go further we are all for.

      Regards,

      • Things like Adwords is a large toilet that we used to flush money down.

        You are the marketing department... it is your job to flush money down the toilet. The best ads are word-of-mouth from trusted friends, anyway. A billboard (either the stationary kind or the kind on the back of a truck), newspaper/magazine spread, TV/Radio commercial, or internet ad can ONLY hope not to annoy me enough to decide never to buy the product.

        The problem with the whole advertising system though is that it comes from a completely biased source, and I would rather get an opinion from an unbia

        • ...[Ads in general] can ONLY hope not to annoy me enough to decide never to buy the product.

          I wish that were true. While there are some products/services whose ads drive me away from the product, I think what happens most of the time is that I forget I've seen the ad, but next time I see the product name, it seems familiar.

          A couple years ago, I saw ads for SAP in the airport that communicated ZERO about what it is or does, but just claimed that great businesses use it. Recently I was told to find out ab

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by RobBebop ( 947356 )

            I remember hearing about a study where people rated one of two identical breakfast cereals as tasting better, simply because it came in a more attractive box. We are not as objective as we like to think.

            Yeah, I agree that packaging matters. So much so, in fact, that knockoff brands tend to use packing similar to the brand they are imitating. I would say a real renegade would buy his breakfast in the bag instead of the box that the overpriced General Mills or Post stuff comes in. That said, I like Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios because of its taste and it usually has a more reasonable price than most other stuff (about $0.25 per bowl of cereal). And everytime I buy knockoff brand Cheerios, I am disap

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by InsaneGeek ( 175763 )
              >Take software for instance, it costs $0 to copy and Microsoft charges $800 for Windows Vista Ultimate without batting an eye

              You've posted the very incorrect raw material cost analogy. Raw material cost != actual cost to create: if I distill a CPU to just some bits of metal & silicon it's cost will be hardly anything. If I distill a skyscraper to just buying a quantity of raw concrete and metal, it's cost will be just a fraction of what it cost to put it up (we'll ignore the window drapes, elevator
      • At the end of the day, whatever closes the deal wins.

        If I walk into a friends house and see a big Sony TV, then see a big Sony TV in a movie product placement, walk by a nice, big Sony TV in Best Buy, and finally buy a big Sony TV from Amazon via a text-based ad, who deserves the money?

        This Microsoft thing sounds interesting, but I think that it's overstating the value of online ads. Typically, online ads aren't for branding... they are attempts at guessing what you want based on context (search) or by tric
        • This Microsoft thing sounds interesting, but I think that it's overstating the value of online ads. Typically, online ads aren't for branding... they are attempts at guessing what you want based on context (search) or by tricking you to click.

          1) A lot of online advertising is for branding. Look at the automotive companies that advertise online, for example... they don't honestly expect people to click the ad and immediately buy a car.

          2) The real point to all of this is this one little nugget: Online ads can

      • Things like Adwords is a large toilet that we used to flush money down. Anything that makes our $$$ go further we are all for.

        And you think that one of the companies receiving those $$$ is interested to make a change to earn less? Or is it rather a change to charge more as they can then "prove" that the more ads they deliver, the more sales will be generated? How long until they propose that they track your customers and then charge you extra because one of your customers looked at one of the ads 10 days a

      • It's none of your god damn business which ones I see. Douchebags like you prevent your more ethical colleagues from getting through to people, because we just block or ignore all ads.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 )
      I thought this too, initially, but there's some possible benefits for the customer and for the person(s) making money off the ad.

      The customer (the company advertising) will have better metrics. Let's say you've got two banner ads (A and B) and a video ad (C). It turns out that out of all the combinations, having the ads viewed in B-C-A order is most succesful. Now the advertiser can model future campaigns on this one. In the past, they may have thought the "A" ad was the best, but they didn't realize it was

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanbd ( 210358 )

      Or perhaps the ads that create an impression that results in a purchase are measurably distinct from the ads people click on. In that case, advertisers would like to data mine to see which ad impressions correlate with purchases and such.

      Of course, there is the whole privacy / tracking issue...

    • Like sports, person who passes ball gets an assist (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AHumbleOpinion ( 546848 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:35PM (#22548676) Homepage
      In short, Microsoft is developing a solution in search of a problem.

      Like in sports, the person who passes the ball/puck/etc does not do the scoring but they do get credit for the assist. Doing so in advertising does make logical sense, and it also seems to be a more fair system. Be careful that you are not against a good idea merely because it was from Microsoft, if Google had suggested this would you have had the same reactions?

      Either that or it's just another attempt at tracking the consumer's every last act, hidden under a patina of equitable distribution of ad revenue.

      To continue in the theme of the above question, does it bother you that google is actually doing so? Mining email, etc?

      • In sports, we know what's going on. We know why the pass was made, we know who made it, we can generally tell how helpful a particular "assist" was. For that matter, we know that this pass directly resulted in a score being made.

        Here, it's all statistics, and we don't really have a clue. And, you don't seem to be addressing the points the GP made -- this doesn't necessarily make it "more fair" at all.

        Be careful that you are not against a good idea merely because it was from Microsoft, if Google had sugges

    • Re:Wasted Effort (Score:4, Funny)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:36PM (#22548702) Journal
      In short, Microsoft is developing a solution in search of a problem.

      That's what marketers do. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. Some ads can even make a product's suckyness a selling point. Consider these automobile ads:

      At Pontiac, we build excitement! (Brakes are bad and teh handling sucks)

      Chevy, like a rock (damned thing won't start)

      At Ford, Quality is Job one! (they have their work cut out for them)

      -mcgrew
      (speaking of ads, here's one: new journal today. It's about the eclipse last Wednesday. There are no hookers or sex in it, but it does feature a violent lunatic)
  • ... can probably afford to pay for every ad they click on. Why not make it so clicking an add withdraws 2 cents from your Visa account, or something?

    I don't know anyone who's ever been surfing a website, saw an ad for a gadget, or a shirt, or anything, and said "Wow, I just found out I need to buy that!"

    • Re:People Who Buy Products Because They Saw A Bann (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:24PM (#22548506) Homepage

      I don't know anyone who's ever been surfing a website, saw an ad for a gadget, or a shirt, or anything, and said "Wow, I just found out I need to buy that!"

      Advertising doesn't really work like that. Much of advertising is just an attempt to create familiarity. So when you DO suddenly decide you "need to buy that!" you'll at least have a passing familiarity with the product that was advertised to you.
      • I suppose... most of the ads I see, though, just drive home the fact that I desperately don't need a product that uses a banner ad that bogs down the entire website, covers up the text I'm trying to read, has a hidden "Shut off" button, irritating music, animated flame effects, and so forth.

        Then again, I'm probably not the target audience. If I want to buy something, I don't click banner ads... I research the different products that are out there, go directly to the site that has them, and buy the best

        • You aren't alone... there are LOTS of people who would prefer a world without advertising. Sirius and XM Satellite Radio made an entire business around the idea that you would pay more to listen to music without advertising. They've got 14 or 15 Million customers paying $13 a month. And that's only a small percentage of the number of people who find value in an adless world.

          Tivo and other Digital Recording devices adopt a similar concept for TV (except for during the Super Bowl, when ads ARE the main a

      • You got it! Familiarity is the key. Maybe the web banner doesn't directly initiate the sale, but it does help create familiarity. Take one of Slashdot's banner ads for Baracuda networking equipment. Prior to being a Slashdotter, I was not aware of this company. But thanks to their ads on Slashdot, I know the exist and I know that they make routers, etc. Being just a Slashdot ad, I don't pay too much attention to it. However, I keep seeing ad posters in airports for this company. That catches my eye.
    • I have -- I haven't actually gone and bought it right away, but I have followed banner ads when I saw something interesting.

      That said, these were at least somewhat relevant/contextual, and I absolutely do block the more obnoxious ones. Anything with an animation is GONE, Flash doubly so.
  • Some are more equal than others.

    Ooo! Was that the first Orwell reference for this article? Do I win an iPod?
  • Even beyond that this is Microsoft, I think there's a simpler answer here too. Is not the only person who made the sale the one who clicked the final link to purchase? I would say so. No matter how much advertising went into before that and how well it can be tracked it is still only deserving to the owner of the sale.
  • How do you track reliably who is clicking on an ad? Unless the person is forced to sign in (emit a personal cookie) on every browser, on every computer, there's no way to know his/her clicking habits on other machines. If the person cleans cookies periodically, there's no way to know what ads led to the sale.

    This seems to me like yet another boondoggle...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )
      These are flaws, but not showstoppers.

      First of all, not that many people clear cookies. Second, the person is going to sign in eventually to buy the item--otherwise, this is all a moot point and further discussion is irrelevant.

      Most people /will/ sign in, too. They'll sign in to their Live.com account or their Google account, and they'll probably never sign out. Their browsing history will be traceable across computers in this way. For those people who do sign out (and good for them--it's just good sens

  • Counter-productive (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dolohov ( 114209 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:23PM (#22548476)
    This would make me far less likely to click on ads. Right now, I only click on ads for two reasons:
    1) I am already interested in that product
    2) I would like to kick back a little money to the site I'm currently surfing. (I frequently have no other way of supporting them)
    (OK, I also occasionally click on ads by accident -- especially those annoying ones that hover over the text and have really tiny "close" boxes)

    If I'm no longer supporting the site I'm on by clicking an ad, then I lose all motivation to click on them. At that point, I start remembering how annoying ads are, and start considering an ad blocker.

    Furthermore, it defeats the efforts of conscientious site hosters like Penny Arcade and Something*Positive (both webcomics, oddly) who are careful to only pick ads for products/sites they can support, and tailor the ads to be useful to their readers. As a result, I strongly suspect that their ads lead to more clicks and more purchases. A scheme like Microsoft's would add a whole lot of free-loaders to their hard work and make it no longer worth while (financially, anyway -- they still have their reputations, of course)
    • 2) I would like to kick back a little money to the site I'm currently surfing. (I frequently have no other way of supporting them)

      Heads up - you're actually hurting the smaller sites you frequent, if you do that.

      Just clicking on the ad makes their clickthrough to buy ratio go down, and they'll get penalized if it gets too low...

      Just send the site money directly - it's much better for everyone that way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )

      This would make me far less likely to click on ads ... If I'm no longer supporting the site I'm on by clicking an ad, then I lose all motivation to click on them.

      Well...that's what the advertisers want. They don't want you to click just to support your favorite site, they want you to click to find out more information and buy some product. It may be bad for the website, but that's largely irrelevant--if the site isn't getting visitors who generate sales, their ad revenue plummets anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dolohov ( 114209 )
        However, I often buy products after clicking that link, so sales are being generated. Case in point: I read an economics blog, Marginal Revolution. They frequently have ads for books I'd be interested in reading anyway, so I make it a point to click through the ads when I'm thinking about buying that book. And the ads do serve a purpose, reminding me about books I thought looked interesting but had forgotten about, and occasionally the ads themselves look interesting.

        If MR were not getting the kickback,

  • Counting clicks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by z80kid ( 711852 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:25PM (#22548518)
    I'll admit to not knowing a whole lot about web advertising.

    But it's occurred to me that this business about measuring an ad's value by counting clicks is BS.

    The same marketers that think an ad is worthless because not enough people visited their page don't think that television or newspaper ads are worthless because not enough people snapped off the TV and called the company.

    They get no feedback from TV or newspaper ads - other than a rough estimate of how many people viewed them. Yet from an Internet ad, they expect potential customers to drop what they're doing and rush to the company's website.

    For instance, the ad at the top of this slashdot page right now says "A golden opportunity to make Java apps richer... click here". It includes a meaningless picture of some golden eggs. No mention of the company name, product name, or anything that might stick in our minds for later. From their perspective, either we click now or the ad was useless.

    They'd never run that ad on TV or in the paper ("blah blah blah, call now."), then cancel their TV ad because nobody called. They'd include some company and product info, and hope we remember them.

    So why do they expect so much more from Internet ads?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )

      So why do they expect so much more from Internet ads?

      Because generally speaking, people have a hard time taking concepts from one domain and applying them in another.

      Of course, in this case, it's not unreasonable to at least try something new. Never before have we had an advertising medium where direct, immediate feedback in the same context was even possible. You can't talk to your TV or write on your newspaper and have anyone receive your words. You have to switch contexts--pick up your phone--in order to respond to the advertiser.

      I think that what we'r

    • But it's occurred to me that this business about measuring an ad's value by counting clicks is BS.

      This is the wrong message to take from this story. The way I read it, this is a shot across the bow for web advertising. Someone do a patent search to see if there has been anything filed for methods of distinguishing different kinds of ad clicks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Electrum ( 94638 )
      From their perspective, either we click now or the ad was useless.

      Actually, it depends on if it's CPM or CPC. With CPM, the advertiser wants to maximize clicks (high CTR). With CPC, the advertiser only wants relevant clicks (low CTR) to minimize their CPA.

      CPC = cost per click
      CPM = cost per (thousand) impression
      CTR = click through rate
      CPA = cost per action (signup, sale, etc.)

  • If you don't click on ads, then what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ralph Spoilsport ( 673134 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @01:31PM (#22548600) Journal
    I honestly can't remember the last time I clicked on an ad to see what it was advertising. As far as I know, everyone I know is pretty much the same - clicking on ads only encourages them.

    RS

  • Why are Microsoft so desperate to get into net advertising? It simply isn't their area of expertise.

    Microsoft's strongest markets are the corporate desktop market and games markets.

    Sure, there's money in advertising. But why spend to much effort in these markets while your desktop OS is in crisis?

  • It sounds so Microsoft. They control the OS and the browser, so they could keep detailed history information about what you've been looking at. But they don't seem to actually be doing that. The Atlas Media Console [atlassolutions.com], which is what this is all about, is just a tool for managing multiple types of ads and reducing the data that comes back as they're viewed.

    Microsoft has a point, though. "Advertising doesn't jerk, it pulls" - John Wanamaker. The ad that was clicked on may not have been the primary influenc

  • ... to run (and use) Privoxy [privoxy.org]. Blocks ads, cookies, and noxious sites. Try it on steaks, cleans nylons, small craft warnings.

    And don't surf without it.
  • Then how does it "get no monetary credit"?

  • Three Year Old News (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @02:27PM (#22549306)
    I remember seeing a presentation on this at a Search Engine Marketing conference in 2005. PPC bidding companies have been doing this for a long time. Microsoft has the media muscle to get the average IT dummy to start thinking about this like it's a revolutionary breakthrough that only the geniuses at Microsoft could possibly figure out.

  • What an awful way to track ads. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blanks ( 108019 ) on Monday February 25, 2008 @03:35PM (#22550266) Homepage Journal
    As a web publisher I could see how this would benefit me as I only display ad's specific to what my sites are about. The problem lies with all the spam content sites that normally draw traffic from non-spam content sites.

    People click on ad's displayed on a site mainly because of how the ad is displayed; mainly though good ad placement, or relevent content. Just because it was displayed on a half dozen other sites the person may have visited dosen't mean they should receive some of the payment. The fact that a user DIDN'T click on the ad on the other sites should infact punish the publishers as their ad's are aparently not specific to their customers visitiing the sites.
  • OK it would have been on topic a few days ago. The Un-news has an article about Microsoft. Ok, it's almost on topic. Oh fuck go ahead and mod me down, as if I'm not depressed enough as it is.

    Microsoft promises to feign interoperability better
    MORDOR, Washington, Friday (UnGadget) -- Microsoft today announced carefully-phrased promises to appear more open about its business practices and technologies, so as to expand its reach through developers, partners, customers and competitors' wallets.

    The interoperabil

  • Also, not all operating systems are created equal (sic).
  • ... as usual, with MS "idea(l)s, the fault will be in the implementation.

    "Say a consumer sees an ad for a product in a video ad one day, and then clicks on a text ad to visit the retailer's site the next day, and then eventually sees a banner ad that leads to a purchase. All of the monetary credit tends to go to the text link that was clicked on."

    Okay, I agree. It is a proven fact that the most effective advertising is based on 'reminders', and true that it is only the last 'sale tripper' ad that gets al

  • So.. (Score:2)

    by Kanasta ( 70274 )
    they've thought of a reason to reduce payouts for ad clicks? cuz CPC is so high c/f CPM, and CPM surely won't go up because of this 'research'

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