The Mysterious Disappearance of Google's Click Metric (zdnet.com) 28
In Google's recent end-of-the-year 2019 financial report, the company for the first time disclosed the revenues for YouTube and its Google Cloud unit. However, as Tom Foremski writes via ZDNet, "Google removed key metrics that have been included for more than 15 years: How much money it makes per click (Cost-per-Click (CPC)) and the growth of paid clicks." From the report: These monetization metrics are typically found on the second page of every quarterly earnings release from Google -- which underscores their importance in a 10-page document. Yet they are missing from the latest Google 2019 Q4 report with no explanation. Clicks are at the heart of Google's business, so why are these metrics no longer viable? And why hasn't this change been noticed widely? Why didn't the Wall Street analysts ask about these missing numbers in the financial call the same day as the report was released? What is Google hiding?
Google has a rapidly deflating advertising product, sometimes 29% less revenue per click, every quarter, year-on-year, year after year. Take a look at this chart: 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%. How is this a sustainable business model? There is an upper limit to how much more expansion in paid links can be found especially with the shift to mobile platforms and the constraints of the display. And what does this say about the effectiveness of Google's ads? They aren't very good and their value is declining at an astounding and unstoppable pace.
Google has a rapidly deflating advertising product, sometimes 29% less revenue per click, every quarter, year-on-year, year after year. Take a look at this chart: 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%. How is this a sustainable business model? There is an upper limit to how much more expansion in paid links can be found especially with the shift to mobile platforms and the constraints of the display. And what does this say about the effectiveness of Google's ads? They aren't very good and their value is declining at an astounding and unstoppable pace.
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On Tuesday it spiked. On Wednesday it fell back to where it was Monday. It is still higher than it ever was before until.. let's see... Monday at about 11am.
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Not to pile on but you both are right and wrong. Telsa has done great for shareholders. I think they are making interesting tech and will be likely be a successful company.
The bad: P/E ratio is about 1500 their stock is in the 700's and their earnings are 0.58 per. So imo you have to be one of the faithful to like this business they are at a crazy evaluation. Its a good company but not worth the current price. They are at about 1 2/3's Volkswagen for example with about 1/10th the earnings. You have to eithe
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I can haz stock chert? I can haz cheeseburder? With 300% sauce?
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110010001000 is a troll. He seems to intensely dislike Elon Musk. Mod him up if you wish, but he is playing you for a fool.
One of his main games is to heap sarcastic praise on Elon Musk and his companies, hoping to get upmodded. Below are some examples of his "sarcastic praise", and some examples of what he really thinks of Musk.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Exactly. It is the cult of Musk. Tech people like Rei and Windbourne and Bruce think that "technologists" are going to solve all our problems. The r
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The stock market has become a YUGE scam (Score:2)
This item is about Google. FFS dont take it even further off-topic. I just had to scroll down two pages of this Musk shit.
What are you talking about? I only see about a screen of the tripe above this point, with only three collapsed comments.
However, these two questions from the original story summary did catch my attention. Perhaps because they're so easily answered?
Why didn't the Wall Street analysts ask about these missing numbers in the financial call the same day as the report was released? What is Google hiding?
The obvious answers are "Because 'Wall Street analysts' are fools or scammers or both" and "Everything of importance".
As regards the stock market, the original idea was to pool capital while limiting risk. Now the idea is to gamble. Fundamental analysis is about t
The artist are the least valuable part of media. (Score:3)
As far as those who control the artist are concerned. In order to squeeze more from them they have to first take away their ability to gauge their worth.
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Such applies to any exchange. For a free market to reach true equilibrium and maximize efficiency it requires all participants to be maximally informed. Information is itself a commodity and control of information and its application within limits as intellectual property yields extraordinary advantage to those who hold it.
Advertising is a type of control of information, which includes both true and false information. The control of false information and misdirection is more important than true information
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How is this a sustainable business model? (Score:2)
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No click tracking needed. The browser is the ad...
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Competing with themselves (Score:4, Interesting)
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The browser use is now the flash ad, the banner ad.
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I think the trajectory is shifting from Google profit harmoniously growing to stagnancy, which means everybody else will tend to feel the negative effects of monopoly defending their monopoly... If easy growth doesn't come naturally, they will try to force profit growth wherever they can... If they don't, financial markets will demand they cash out if they are a mature monopoly, leaving little scope for alternative. Of course they are simultaneously passing (or passed) the threshold of regulatory vulnerabil
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I wonder if privacy enhancements are taking their toll as well.
A lot of ads rely on "ping back" systems to record clicks. A lot of privacy enhancing browser tech blocks them. Even Google thinks they are a bad idea and is creating a new semi-anonymous API for advertisers to use (Apple is creating a nearly identical one for Safari).
The BS of Internet Ads (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's a great read, and absolutely hilarious in places.
But from long experience, hardly any story of human incompetence on a mass scale at the level of corner offices in glass towers are never quite this simple in the long run.
Huge grain of truth here, but this narrative is too glib by half. Don't fall for it all the way.
Part of the problem with online advertising is that this is effectively an arms race between predator and prey. Consumers constantly adapt to the onslaught, the onslaught constantly adapts
anecdotal but (Score:2)
my boss stopped using Google advertising because he says it doesn't work. Problem is you tell them what your ad budget is and magically the whole budget gets spent every month. We are in a very niche software industry. Our suspicion: you just get accidental clicks because google starts plastering your ad on unrelated searches and you get people that wouldn't be interested in your product anyways so that they can get all the money you "promised" them.