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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

I read though this missive - and the first thing that came to my mind was the definition that "more than six clicks a minute is considered invalid" - and I tried to recall if there was a time in the past year that I clicked on six display ads in a day.

I then realized that, when I'm searching to purchase something on Google, I may click on half a dozen ads in a minute - but realistically, each of those has a chance at getting $20-$40 worth of revenue (and the potential, as in the case of monoprice, of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of revenue after I discover the site)

I'm wondering if anybody has done a definitive study on the conversion value of a "click" on google versus Facebook, both in terms of brand recognition, immediate conversion (purchase), and long term conversion (delayed purchase) - that study, if definitive, would probably adjust GOOG/FB by 10s of billions of dollars - clearly a leading indicator of future revenue.

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That is a great point. If anyone does want to do the calcs ;), it's important to keep in mind the difference between what you do on Google when you are clicking around 'searching' for content, and what happens with these folks on Facebook. On Google, your intent is relatively clear since the advertisers bought ad space against _search_ terms...not perfect, but pretty good. On the other hand, Facebook is claiming that they can do an amazing job of targeting customer segments...which may be true, but it is also mostly irrelevant in this case since the intent behind the behavior is the only thing that really matters in cost-per-click advertising that costs more than a fraction of a penny per click.

I believe the market will take care of the price once it understands the product that Facebook is selling - at least I hope so. In the mean time, Facebook is fleecing a bunch of advertisers, especially small ones.

People do this all the time - there are whole advertising optimization companies built around doing it automatically.

You won't usually see public numbers for it (because it is pretty site/product specific), but the IAB has some public studies on the display/brand recognition side.

Probably not, but it sounds like a fun weekend project. I think you just gave me something to do this weekend :D Thanks

> "when I'm searching to purchase something on Google, I may click on half a dozen ads in a minute"

People really do that? Not search for some specialized site and ask/search there but actually click on ADs to buy useful things?

Absolutely -a company that actively wants to pay for me to see their existence when I'm searching for somthing is a company that actively wants me to buy it there; that's often a valuable indicator that they're worth considering as a supplier.

I'd say when I search for something I'm intending to buy on google, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the time I buy it via an adsense link rather than an organic search link. Anecdata worth every penny you paid for it, as always, but I've said this conversationally to a fair few people and the majority have said something more like "yeah, me too" than "people really do that?"

Just as another anecdata point, I'm in the 'people really do that.' group.

When I'm researching something to buy, I will usually do searches on google for broad scope brands/products, then move to Amazon as my first option for purchase, provided the item is available there and within a few % of the lowest online price I've seen elsewhere.

My research may include reading blogs/forums, and possible asking questions there. If its not something too esoteric, I might ask my FB friends for an opinion or suggestion.

At no point in my normal buying processes does FB ads, or 'Likes' play any role.

My wife follows roughly the same pattern, but may be partially influenced by my approach, though I will say her methods differ slightly enough that they are her own.

My brain algo is something like this:

If I know exactly what I want I search in Google and might or might not click on the first result (the ad) since sometimes the ad is exactly the same as the first organic result (and sometimes with a discount because you go to a landing page instead of, say, the home page of that company's site).

If I want something but have no idea which company I want to buy from I usually do look into the ads first and click on those that seem directed at me (because, as you said, they actively want me to buy from them).

It'd be an interesting study, although I think you're comparing apples and oranges - Google is direct response whereas FB is banner advertising. The level of intent in Google queries is high. The level of intent in a user seeing a FB ad is still largely an unknown - with FB arguing that the information they have about a user indicates intent - but to me it is the difference between targeting based on intent and profile.

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