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Comment by megablast | Hacker News Reader

Does advertising create an increase in buying your product. That’s the most important question.

At least with ecommerce one can track users that have seen and/or clicked on ads with what they have purchased and return on ad spend can be calculated.

But yes, the question still is: does it raise intent or did the user already want the thing, googled it, and clicked on the first result (which is your ad, above the organic results that also lead to your online store)?

The fundamental problem with this is that if I bought your product, it's because I was looking for your product after doing a decent amount of research which meant I was on a bunch of retargeting lists and you've wasted money on me. I have never to my recollection purchased anything because of an ad. If I have clicked through an ad, it was simply because it was the quickest way to get to the website/product.

There is a role for advertising because Google polluted their organic search results with Ads making it harder for you to find what you want and forcing you to compete for the top Ad spot. I realize that I can only speak for myself, but I have never seen any evidence that advertising works and I've worked in ad tech.

It's pretty clear to see direct causation when using ads to promote your product. Promote your product using ads for 1 month, then turn off ads and see how many sales you get. For a majority of e-commerce, you'll see a substantial drop.

You've researched every item you buy in your weekly shop? You've never bought anything on a whim, or a gift for someone else?

If you are sinking $100M in, I sure hope it’s having some effect.

You're also bidding for eyeballs. An established player might want to scoop up the most relevant keywords forcing competitors to at least price match, effectively starving them either of views or cash

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