alt Hacker NewsIt reminds me of an analogy I read a while ago in an article critiquing keyword based online advertising (can't find the article unfortunately). A restaurant wants to drum up new business, so the owner tasks three employees with handing out flyers with coupons attached. The coupons are marked to identify which employee passed them out, and each week the owner gives a bonus to the employee whose coupons get redeemed the most. Week after week, the same employee keeps getting the bonus. The other two get more and more suspicious. Is he some kind of marketing genius that's able to get tons of people to use his coupons? Finally, they ask him how he does it. He says, "I stand in the waiting area of the restaurant".
This guy's publisher is paying Amazon $1/click to show the book to people who are already going to buy the book. It's basically the same thing.
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This is what I wonder… the author says that:
> The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“
But that doesn’t mean the ad is a good investment. It isn’t just about the yield from the ad, but about the DIFFERENCE in yield between having the ad and not having the ad.
It is really simplistic thinking to just look at conversion rates.
You raise a good point. This phenomenon is well-documented for at least two decades now on Google search. It is common for brands to buy keywords for their own product. Why? If not, competitors will by the same keywords to direct customers away. As I understand, this has existed for more than 20 years and Google has never been sued for it (that I know). Maybe this is just part of a highly competitive online search market. To be clear: I am not saying that I like or agree with this market outcome as a consumer, but I am merely saying it has existed for a long time and gov't regulators don't seem to really care.