Comments on: Seth Godin’s Lost it!

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:22:21 +0000

Wow I’m surprised with his statement. The guy is definitely missing some points when it comes to online marketing.He should be reminded of two facts:
1) The big G is dominating the internet advertising market. As of March 2008, they have 70% share of the internet advertising market including DoubleClick.

2) It is strictly forbidden to encourage clicks according to Adsense TOS. Seth is free to fantasize though however these are the solid, hard facts of the situation.

In fairness to him, he added a follow up post about it. However it still doesn’t convince me to justify asking people to click ads.

Sam
Fix My Personal Finance
http://fixmypersonalfinance.com/

By: The Smarter Wallet

The Smarter Wallet — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:39:25 +0000

I thought that was against Adsense TOS?

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:28:45 +0000

I agree that Seth is just stirring the pot. I don’t think he’ll entice a whole whack of click fraud because his statement however controversial you might think it is really isn’t going to change people’s behavior. Even if your ad clicks went up from 0.5% to 0.75% I think very quickly people would get bored of doing it and you’d be back to your usual 0.5%. I find that people are generally lazy and clicking on a link that forces them to click the back button or even the home button will annoy them and they’ll stop doing it.

By: Preston

Preston — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:21:46 +0000

Since I Started blogging about work I’ve seen some incredibly accurate ads come across google adsense over at one of my blogs. In fact, we’re currently evaluating a product that came across my own blog ad…heh.

While I believe that clicking ads for the sake of clicking ads can be harmful, acknowledging their existence and trying to target your content in a way that allows the ads to be meaningful does have benefits.

(That said, I browse with noscript and adblock in full force 99% of the time.)

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:06:05 +0000

I read Seth’s blog because his content is all original; not because I always agree with him. We disagree on ads and the use of pie charts in presentations, so far.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:50:17 +0000

Seth actually wrote a follow-up post the following day.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/beating-the-sta.html

By: Jerry

Jerry — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:24:33 +0000

I have had people email me and ask me to click on their blog ads in the past, and I thought it was pretty… I don’t know… “off.” I hope Seth was just generating some buzz, I wouldn’t want to be the lead balloon to suggest otherwise. Affiliate advertising should ideally be offered with some unspoken insurance that the person who owns the site really does endorse the product, but I guess that’s a little too much to ask from most people. (Present company excluded, of course!)
Jerry

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:07:41 +0000

It looks like Seth wrote the post to generate controversy. The analogy is off. Tip jar collects money from customers. Money from ads come from companies. A donation button is a tip jar. While I would enjoy more money, I’d rather get it honestly.

By: JLP

JLP — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:04:35 +0000

Yana,

I have purposely stayed away from most affiliate advertising because I don’t want to have to endorse a product in order for it to sell.

By: Yana

Yana — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:52:21 +0000

Tip jars are tip jars. I like them because they are straightforward. On blogs and personal websites, I pay attention to affiliate links if I think the blogger personally endorses the product or service. I pay no attention to advertising that has no relevance in that it is not specifically chosen by someone I like and respect (the blogger/site owner). I don’t look at or click on Google text ads or targeted marketing; in fact, I resent targeted marketing. I don’t see many ads that I wouldn’t want to see, because I block them in my browsers.

Nobody will get in trouble for click fraud on my account!