Post #2448761

2023-01-20 02:40 UTC

@mrzaius@hachyderm.io so amazon smile supposedly started as a way to avoid paying google for search traffic which sounds exactly like the kind of cold, soulless, mercenary thing amazon would do except that google doesn't get paid for regular search results, they only get paid for ad clicks and if amazon doesn't want to pay for ad clicks, then amazon could just stop running ads and amazon is ending the program, but google still exists, so if avoiding google was the reason, then why stop the program? sorry, this story doesn't add up @anildash@me.dm

Replies (3)

@mgaruccio@hachyderm.io 2023-01-20 03:33

@ares@kolektiva.social @mrzaius@hachyderm.io @anildash@me.dm This was kind of common knowledge when smile launched(I think Amazon even said it publicly) so it’s a little surprising to see it being argued Common flow is google search > Amazon ad > purchase. I imagine they tested not running those ads and found they missed out on a % of sales. Smile let them shift user behavior w/o missing any potential rev. Best guess is that shifting users to the app became more important and smile not beneficial there.

Open ##2448762
@tob@hachyderm.io 2023-01-20 03:44

@ares@kolektiva.social @mrzaius@hachyderm.io @anildash@me.dm Yeah, there's a bit of 2 + 2 = 5 happening in this story. The stuff about paying Google is weird, but the basic outline is right. If you're amazon, the problem is being reliant on Google for your traffic. What happens if tomorrow Google decides to house your results? A lot of online vendors have this problem, but Amazon is big enough to do something about it. Encouraging more users to start their shopping at amazon.com is a win all by itself.

Open ##2448763
@dalias@hachyderm.io 2023-01-20 04:02

@ares@kolektiva.social @mrzaius@hachyderm.io @anildash@me.dm This suggests Google was/is being paid for placements that aren't disclosed as ads. If so, that calls for a serious investigation.

Open ##2448766