So, there are a lot of reasons to think ads might not work, and a lot of reasons to think surely market forces would punish companies who spend $$ on ads that don't work. Which to believe?
Well, reality check: do the ads you get shown, work? For me, almost never. It's either:
1) the thing I was google searching for anyway, or
2) the thing I bought online yesterday, which I therefore definitely don't want and won't want for a long time. This even happened with things like cars and house air conditioners, where someone who's recently made a purchase is the LEAST likely to want it.
I can think of a lot of reasons for ad-supported companies (which includes news journalists) to want to claim that ads work better than they do. I can think of reasons why executives want to believe ads will save them, when they won't, because actually improving your product is much harder than spending VC money on ads.
Well, reality check: do the ads you get shown, work? For me, almost never. It's either: 1) the thing I was google searching for anyway, or 2) the thing I bought online yesterday, which I therefore definitely don't want and won't want for a long time. This even happened with things like cars and house air conditioners, where someone who's recently made a purchase is the LEAST likely to want it.
I can think of a lot of reasons for ad-supported companies (which includes news journalists) to want to claim that ads work better than they do. I can think of reasons why executives want to believe ads will save them, when they won't, because actually improving your product is much harder than spending VC money on ads.