On Aug 4, 2006, at 3:41 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Now I found 2 more people that also don't buy anything from Google ad links. If few people are buying anything I wonder how long Google's business model can last. Eventually the advertisers will figure out that clicks don't translate to (much) more sales.
But advertisers *are* finding that Google's ads lead to more sales. Realize that Google is paid by the advertisers for the clicks. When you click a link, the vendor whose link you clicked pays Google for that click, regardless of whether or not they sell anything. It's up to the advertiser to convert the visitor into a customer, but it's Google who drove the visitor to their site, and for that Google gets paid. This is why it's in Google's best interest to target ads efficiently. And having effectively targeted ads opens Google's advertising services up to everyone. You no longer have to be a corporation with a multi-million dollar ad budget dedicated to buying dozens of banner ads across popular websites. You can be a tiny antique shop in La Mesa and buy a few adwords that are very specific to your business for a small monthly budget. It's these kind of businesses who are finding that Google has managed to revolutionize online business.
Also realize that Google only makes a portion of their advertising revenue from the ads on google.com itself. They get tons of very specific traffic from embedded adwords on other websites. For example if I ran a forum about DVD movies, I could put a block of adwords on each page of my site and Google would automatically figure out that those ads should all be related to DVDs and movies. The chances of one of my site visitors clicking through on something that interests them is much greater.
I think you're querying the wrong group here - KPLUG is made of very technically savvy folks who probably already know where to go to get what they want, and may even purposely avoid "the establishment" of online commerce. On the other end of the spectrum are the people who click and buy things in spam email. In between is the remaining great majority, and those are the people who do business with vendors who advertise on Google.
-- Joshua Penix http://www.binarytribe.com Binary Tribe Linux Integration Services & Network Consulting -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
