Column #138

There’s always unscrupulous characters around and the Internet is still a “New Frontier” which means it’s loaded with gotchas. Most people learn vicariously or through experience about how to avoid Internet gotchas. But the complexity of the Internet exposes everyone to a limitless number of hidden scams and gotchas that provide billions of dollars to the Big Boys and two-bit scammers.

The first practical schematics for the Internet were developed in the early 1960s. I first heard about email in the early 1980s. WWW was introduced in 1990 and there was a lot of talk about how useful the Internet was going to be and I was informed that I just had to get dial-up Internet. But Internet use remained subdued for quite a few years and selling stuff with it was a pipe dream. Then on July 5, 1994 Amazon was created. Google was founded in 1998. Facebook launched on February 4, 2004. Now nearly everyone on earth has heard of the Internet and most people use it daily. That in itself is extraordinary.

Information hacks, computer viruses, and the recent Facebook scandal illustrates how millions and maybe billions of Internet users can be impacted without having a clue that something has occurred. For certain everyone involved with the Internet can be targeted in ways they can’t even imagine. There are too many gotchas for a short paper so I’ll limit my discussion to a couple that impact legitimate Internet retail businesses and their customers.

Advertising Gotchas

Generally people view the Internet as a communications link, an information source, an entertainment portal, a means for storing digital content, community connections, an online shopping mall, and as an advertising platform.

Newspaper, radio, television, magazine, and highway billboard advertisements are easy to recognize for what they are. Sometimes there is sponsored programming or articles (advertisements) that are disguised as content. The more credible venues have headings indicating the presentations are actually advertisements. But not the Internet.

Many informational Internet sites are actually advertising platforms with articles written by ghost writers who basically copy other ghost writers. They are geared to market everything and anything with thick layers of schmooze, scaremongering, and myths. There are so many of them repeating the same myths over and over that what they claim often gains factual status.

Internet advertising differs from the media we’re most familiar with and it’s exploited by the biggest of the big as well as individual websites. When it comes to search advertising the numerous gotchas increase advertising costs which are passed onto the customers. Here’s some of the ways the big boys rake in the loot.

Search engine advertising is designed to siphon money directly into the pockets of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others. How much money? According to “Bloomberg Intelligence” the global advertising market is a $650 billion market. Facebook and Google together dominant that market with Facebook posting nearly 26% market share and Alphabet (Google) holding more than 60%.

Many people do not realize how much an advertiser pays for a click. The proper term is “Cost Per Click” or CPC. In 2016 Facebook’s average CPC was 27.3 cents in the USA. It’s world average CPC was $0.35 and in Japan the average CPC was $0.73. But that’s chump change.

The average cost per click for Google AdWords across all industries is $2.69 for search and $0.63 for display.

The search engines are the go to place to find anything and everything. When the search is for a product that Google, Bing, or Yahoo, etc. have ads for, their objective is to get people to click an ad rather than a free organic result. They know shoppers are reluctant to scroll down a page of responses and rarely will they look at the second page. Therefore they stack the ads (paid search results) above the organic search results. Then they populate the organic search results with mostly local sources (they know your location) rather than the most used and popular national sources. Therefore ads are usually clicked even when a free organic result for the same site is just a few results lower on the same page.

Because ads show first, many retail businesses use their own business names as advertising keywords. Even the well-known national companies advertise their names to make sure a search shows their name near the top of the page. As a result, instead of scrolling down the page to find the organic search or enter a website address in their browser, people are being conditioned to click ads. Consequently, more money flows to the search engine.

Another issue regarding search ads is the repetitive visitor. Some visitors shop by clicking back and froth between ads over and over again. Each time they click they generate another CPC for the search engine. Unless the clicks are “determined” to be abusive, the search engines do not filter out these repetitive clickers. No other advertising medium operates like this. The search engines certainly do not inform people that they are needlessly running up the advertising costs of the business they intend to shop.

Other tricks used by some information-oriented websites is to have ads fade in over their pages right after their page loads. Their tactic is to create CPCs that would normally not occur. As their webpage loads the visitor can see that what they want to view is on the next level. As they click the link, the ad that’s loading over the entire page is toggled. The visitor is diverted to an advertiser’s website they had no intention of viewing. In that case the referring site earns a commission from the click and the Big Boys pocket the remainder of the CPC fee. The advertiser and visitor were scammed.

This Internet discussion may seem off topic, but I’m in the online health food marketing business. I’m a specialized retailer with a market focus so narrow virtually no brick and mortar store tries to compete on the same level. They just would not get enough traffic even in a busy shopping center. In my case, the ranch is way out in the country where few people venture. Therefore a free, unfettered, and trusted Internet is critical for our survival.

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

Don’t miss these links for additional reading:

Who invented the internet?

Amazon the Company from Wikipedia

Google from Wikipedia

Facebook from Wikipedia

The Complete Resource to Understanding Facebook Ads Cost – 2016 Benchmarks!

Google AdWords Benchmarks for YOUR Industry from WordStream