In this video, Motley Fool tech and telecom analyst Andrew Tonner tells investors about a recent study from a group of economists at eBay's (NASDAQ: EBAY ) Research Labs, comparing geographic areas where the company had withdrawn its Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) ads with areas where it hadn't over a three-month period. The company found no significant loss in sales between the two areas. Does this call into question the efficacy of advertising with Google? Andrew tells us why having a major advertiser like eBay lose faith might have an impact on Google, and he gives investors some key takeaways for their own investing theses on these two companies.
As one of the most dominant Internet companies ever, Google has made a habit of driving strong returns for its shareholders. However, like many other Web companies, it's also struggling to adapt to an increasingly mobile world. Despite gaining an enviable lead with its Android operating system, the market isn't sold. That's why it's more important than ever to understand each piece of Google's sprawling empire. In The Motley Fool's new premium research report on Google, we break down the risks and potential rewards for Google investors. Simply click here now to unlock your copy of this invaluable resource.
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Report this Comment On March 14, 2013, at 1:44 AM, motleyLiam wrote:
How ironic - eBay has been treating their small sellers in the same fashion for the last 7 years, by way of their search software (Best Match).
Now, the shoe is on the other foot.
Perhaps those at Wall St will finally take note as to what really goes on behind the scenes at eBay, in regard to member treatment.
Report this Comment On March 14, 2013, at 6:12 AM, samdemetri wrote:
No kidding sherlock. We researched this 2 years ago on 40 large companies we studied found that 70% of Google PPC clicks were brand terms but companies are blackmailed that if they do not buy their brand terms someone else will. The value is not extra traffic, as they would get that anyway from natural search, but was to stop competitors taking traffic away!
The conversion from non brand terms for large companies was pitiful.
Also what tracking are you using? Low and behold its probably Google Analytics? Hold on might there be a conflict of interest for someone to sell you clicks and then tell you if it works? Doh?
Do you know that Google has made 30 changes to Google Analytics to make it look better for Google ROI.
The biggest change they made was unbelieveable. They changed the way sales were recorded. They said the sale would be recorded based on the last referred website? That means if someone types in a keyword, probably the brand term, and then sees a TV advert offline or maybe a newspaper ad and then decides to come back to the site directly (ie not going via Google) the purchase would be recorded in Google Analytics as a sale from "Google"? Google ignores direct visits. Its unbelievable on so many levels. The world is seriously duped and probably in the eyes of many large scale fraud is going on as basically Google Analytics is ignoring the influence of any offline marketing working at all.
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