That never made any sense to me. Sure, if you convert a significant amount of people to spamming ad clicks you reduce the value of each click but that just means advertisers will pay less per click. It also has zero effect if they use other metrics, if you pay on conversion rate (number of signups/paying customers) click spam doesn’t matter.
There is some value in messing with data by clicking everything but if you never see ads anyway that data isn’t worth a whole lot.
Recopying my comment. Worked in the ad industry for a short while, and yes this will fuck with their metrics, not not in an obvious way. You have to know how companies make their money to really understand why it fucks with them:
It’ll be a long game. As you “click” they’ll think you’re REALLY interested. However it won’t matter since you won’t see them.
Where you’re really hurting them is how they rely on the Click Through Rate (CTR) as a metric for more important metrics. They know that less than 0.01% of people click, but the real metric is the sales funnel. If they can prove that you saw the ad and then eventually it led to a sale? Oh marketers lose their shit over that.
So, this destroys that conversion metric. They’ll see way more click through, but the conversion metrics won’t align. That’s decades of models and algorithms that have been built to show that they’re good at that… Going to zero. That’s the metric that other companies pay gobs of money to advertising companies to prove - that their ads were not only seen but led to tangible sales.
And that’s why everyone should do this. Ad companies know you’re going to attempt to block ads, so they know if you saw it that you’re more likely to buy, and if you click then you’re so much more interested in buying. Then… No purchase, no buy, and the ad company has one less tick on their metric proving why they deserve some company’s money. This fucks with them as an industry, and I couldn’t be happier. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. After all, we’re doing what they want!
You’re also putting money in Google’s pocket… They’ve been caught doing things like this to cheese their metrics
Once a customer burns through their ad buy and sees they got a ton of clicks, they’re going to think “oh shit, this worked great”. Even under closer inspection, it looks like the ad worked, but that they’re failing to make the sales
So they’re probably going to buy more
This idea only works by helping inflate the advertising bubble, until it pops you’re just supporting ad services
It doesn’t click nearly everything by default, that would diminish uBlock’s bandwidth savings. I agree with your point though, and ads measuring signups rather than clicks have more agressive tracking by definition and should not be encouraged.
It’s just adnauseum.
That never made any sense to me. Sure, if you convert a significant amount of people to spamming ad clicks you reduce the value of each click but that just means advertisers will pay less per click. It also has zero effect if they use other metrics, if you pay on conversion rate (number of signups/paying customers) click spam doesn’t matter.
There is some value in messing with data by clicking everything but if you never see ads anyway that data isn’t worth a whole lot.
Recopying my comment. Worked in the ad industry for a short while, and yes this will fuck with their metrics, not not in an obvious way. You have to know how companies make their money to really understand why it fucks with them:
You’re also putting money in Google’s pocket… They’ve been caught doing things like this to cheese their metrics
Once a customer burns through their ad buy and sees they got a ton of clicks, they’re going to think “oh shit, this worked great”. Even under closer inspection, it looks like the ad worked, but that they’re failing to make the sales
So they’re probably going to buy more
This idea only works by helping inflate the advertising bubble, until it pops you’re just supporting ad services
It doesn’t click nearly everything by default, that would diminish uBlock’s bandwidth savings. I agree with your point though, and ads measuring signups rather than clicks have more agressive tracking by definition and should not be encouraged.