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Listing Enhancements


Prokofy Neva
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Several times against my better judgement I have put "listing enhancements" for a specific product tied to a holiday or special occasion, on the front page even, for $799, which is a lot of money for me.

Then you get a report showing all the "impressions," which is merely whom it was put in front of, the click-through which are of course much less, and you see the sales on your control panel.

But what I never see is the ad on the front page.

Now why is that?

I look at the front page, I scroll through the offerings, and my ad isn't there -- even a day or two later (and they last 7 days). Then I figure, "Oh, they must have so many front-page ads that they can't show them all on any given scroll, but it probably comes up some other time."

So then when I remember, I go back and check for it -- I never see it.

Of course it's annoying that you have to remember to cancel it before it bills again, and now two ads billed again and I haven't seen them on the front page in 7 days, randomly checking.

I don't mean the front page for a category, I mean the whole front page -- that's what it is, no?

What's the deal?

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Do you really want to pay to advertise to yourself? It a rhetorical, but serious question.

I paid for front page listing a few times over the years and I think I saw my own advertisement twice. I was miffed! Those were wasted impressions the way I saw it. I have always assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the Marketplace enhancements system would, could *should* have some kind if way to know to not show my own adverts to me. Perhaps @Dakota Linden or another in the know can verify or debunk that.

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It's actually a bit of (very unbalanced, inefficient, and not up to current standards) randomized code that selects which ads to show and when. The code ensures you get the NUMBER of impressions (showings) of your ad, but that's about it. There is no real guarantee of how many impressions per (insert whatever measure of time,  other than the full length of your enhancement-which is the only guarantee) or even who will actually get those impressions. Odds are quite good you will never see your own ad, and frankly you shouldn't want to. If you DO see your ad, it's just another indicator of precisely how outdated that method actually is. As Alyona pointed out, that would be a giant fail on their part if you, the person paying for the impressions, saw them-that's one less person to see them.  However, the fact that you don't see your own ad, still doesn't mean it's working right, because the coding used for such is not up to date with current standards....you just happen to luck out when you don't see your ad, there's no real rhyme or reason to why you don't. 

One problem with the way enhancements work is that there are many, many people who can easily spend hours looking at the MP (for various different reasons), not necessarily in one sitting but even over a period of a day or two. Those people may very well be seeing your ad multiple times in one session. They are each counted as one impression. If I go to the MP right now and scroll through those enhancements, get to the end, refresh my page (or return to the beginning), or even go to another MP page and then return to the home page (or top of a category where there are also enhancements, whichever), I can EASILY see the same ad multiple times. That means I just ate up someone's impressions (unintentionally on my part, of course), so that person isn't even remotely benefiting from those impressions. Odds are damn good I'm not buying from those enhancements, because when I do shop on MP, it's likely for something specific, or at least category specific. I still SEE the ad though, and that's all the algorithm ensures. It's why I don't scroll through enhancements, ever, and try to stay off top pages, because that's just wasted money for that merchant, and I'm not fond of wasting others' money like that (pennies or not).

To make this shorter...enhancements are a waste of money, are not effective, and don't work like most people think they do (even if you get click-throughs), and don't use current standards for such activities in the algorithms and coding.  Never be surprised when they don't act the way you think they should....they don't act the way current standards suggest they should, either, lol. 

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19 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

It's actually a bit of (very unbalanced, inefficient, and not up to current standards) randomized code that selects which ads to show and when. The code ensures you get the NUMBER of impressions (showings) of your ad, but that's about it. There is no real guarantee of how many impressions per (insert whatever measure of time,  other than the full length of your enhancement-which is the only guarantee) or even who will actually get those impressions. Odds are quite good you will never see your own ad, and frankly you shouldn't want to. If you DO see your ad, it's just another indicator of precisely how outdated that method actually is. As Alyona pointed out, that would be a giant fail on their part if you, the person paying for the impressions, saw them-that's one less person to see them.  However, the fact that you don't see your own ad, still doesn't mean it's working right, because the coding used for such is not up to date with current standards....you just happen to luck out when you don't see your ad, there's no real rhyme or reason to why you don't. 

One problem with the way enhancements work is that there are many, many people who can easily spend hours looking at the MP (for various different reasons), not necessarily in one sitting but even over a period of a day or two. Those people may very well be seeing your ad multiple times in one session. They are each counted as one impression. If I go to the MP right now and scroll through those enhancements, get to the end, refresh my page (or return to the beginning), or even go to another MP page and then return to the home page (or top of a category where there are also enhancements, whichever), I can EASILY see the same ad multiple times. That means I just ate up someone's impressions (unintentionally on my part, of course), so that person isn't even remotely benefiting from those impressions. Odds are damn good I'm not buying from those enhancements, because when I do shop on MP, it's likely for something specific, or at least category specific. I still SEE the ad though, and that's all the algorithm ensures. It's why I don't scroll through enhancements, ever, and try to stay off top pages, because that's just wasted money for that merchant, and I'm not fond of wasting others' money like that (pennies or not).

To make this shorter...enhancements are a waste of money, are not effective, and don't work like most people think they do (even if you get click-throughs), and don't use current standards for such activities in the algorithms and coding.  Never be surprised when they don't act the way you think they should....they don't act the way current standards suggest they should, either, lol. 

Gals, I don't care about seeing my own ad.

That's not the issue.

Um, I'm not "advertising to myself".

I merely want TO KNOW IF IT WORKS. It's a mechanical question. 

Because I don't see evidence that it does. It's not about "wanting" or "wasting one impression," that's silly. It's about finding out from others if it works. How do I know it works if I don't see my ad? Everything else on the MP and inworld works differently. If I post something for sale, I see my page for that item. If I check off the search/places ad inworld, if I search for the name of my store, I see the ad in search. Same for classifieds, which of course also work on some formula where they aren't always visible, but still, I see them.

Not so with the MP -- that's all there is to it.

The entire business of "impressions" -- upon which digital advertising is based -- never impressed me and I don't think that's really what makes sales, except in some theoretical world. Impressions don't make sales, sales make sales. People click through and buy not because there were 1000 impressions and they were one of them, but because you reached them with something they wanted, or your ad sounded compelling.

I'm not going to be buying them again for the simple reason that it doesn't seem worth it, because there are too many people chasing the tiny window of viewability. $799 in fact seems like way too low a price for this tiny window. It should cost 10 times as much, the way the top view does on classifieds. If I spend $1000 and not $10000 on a rental ad, I know I'm not going to get as many views, TPs, and sales. This idea that there is some "fair algorithm" at work that maybe puts me in the queue and in the view sometimes doesn't seem reasonable to me. That tiny, rare window should go to whomever can spend the most money, the end. I won't be one of those people, but at least I know that I haven't been put in the view due to socialistic theory but by market motives.

It seems to me you are overthinking this -- and your experience isn't universal. I've gone to the page, refreshed it a half dozen times, and I don't see the same ad, much less my own. That leads me to conclude that there's an enormous queue of people chasing this window, and therefore it's crazy.

There's also this: I never look at the ads on the main page. Ever. They never have anything I'm remotely interested in. Occasionally, the ticker of things that people actually bought is interesting, if it is furniture or a house, and that I will click on. Perhaps I've even bought things a few times but I don't recall that.

Only search works for sales, not ads. Google knows this, too, of course. The people who buy those ads at the top of the page of search results endlessly annoy me because they never change and I will never go to their stores, even though I have in the past precisely because they are annoying me so tremendously with some really lousy junk that they should know better to be paying money to advertise. It's a mystery why one top creator in particular is putting that discounted junk up there.

So how do you get at the top of search? Obviously one way is by being viewed, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you are viewed because you are viewed. But over time, I tend to think that the best made items in a category float to the top by more purchases. Even so, I will scroll through a bunch of pages because you never know.

 

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2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Gals, I don't care about seeing my own ad.

That's not the issue.

Um, I'm not "advertising to myself".

I merely want TO KNOW IF IT WORKS. It's a mechanical question. 

You asked why you don't see your own ad, not whether or not impressions actually work. 

But I did answer that question as well. No, it does not work, not as it should work, not as current standards dictate it should work, not in the way such activities work on ANY other website out there that was made after 2000.  But yes it does work by MP standards, which, are very odd indeed

 

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

How do I know it works if I don't see my ad? Everything else on the MP and inworld works differently. If I post something for sale, I see my page for that item. If I check off the search/places ad inworld, if I search for the name of my store, I see the ad in search. Same for classifieds, which of course also work on some formula where they aren't always visible, but still, I see them.

Not so with the MP -- that's all there is to it.

If by "how do I know it works" you mean "how do I know if anyone is seeing my ad at all?"( your question isn't really clear yet at this point). You'll know by whether or not your stats page for that ad shows impressions. If it shows that you have indeed gotten impressions, then yes, by that token it "functions". Again, not as it SHOULD., but as it is expected by MP standards...which, again, are not normal standards anywhere in the world..so, take that as you will. 

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It seems to me you are overthinking this -- and your experience isn't universal. I've gone to the page, refreshed it a half dozen times, and I don't see the same ad, much less my own. That leads me to conclude that there's an enormous queue of people chasing this window, and therefore it's crazy.

There's also this: I never look at the ads on the main page. Ever. They never have anything I'm remotely interested in. Occasionally, the ticker of things that people actually bought is interesting, if it is furniture or a house, and that I will click on. Perhaps I've even bought things a few times but I don't recall that.

I'm not overthnking anything, lmao, I simply know how such things work (regardless of cost, they should only function one way, follow one set of current standards, and not use outdated methodologies, also, this is an oooooooold topic, we've discussed it a lot on this forum over the years). My experience is very much universal if you do as I actually said and scroll through the ads, not merely stay on one page and not allow all the ads to load. Go ahead and try it, go tot he home page, or even the top page of any category that has enhanced listings. Now scroll through them, all of them, now refresh and do it again. Bam, you'll see at the very least some of the very same ads all over again. You might have some new ones, in categories where a LOT Of people buy ad space, but you won't find an entirely new set, at least some will always be repeats. That is how it has functioned since day one, and hasn't changed an iota.  Not that it really matters, as I said at the end...it's a worthless endeavor for nearly anyone (and on a personal note, it actually surprises me that anyone even uses enhanced listings at all anymore, but I do suspect some bought it once, or twice and then just have it on repeat, because they've got the funding to do so and never stopped.

But your own experience with never viewing those ads actually answers your own question too, that it does not function as it should (if it did, more of us would look at those ads, lol). That's part of why it costs what it does, because it's so ineffective an advertising method. You're right that such features usually cost a great deal. This one is actually way over cost, imo, given how it works (or does not, as the case may be). Advertising in a virtual space isn't quite as expensive as it is in other places, for other things, but if this were up to current standards, it would definitely cost more (don't give LL any ideas...though truth be told, they'd be complete fools to ever increase this cost, it would be a guaranteed loss of most buyers,)

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So how do you get at the top of search? Obviously one way is by being viewed, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you are viewed because you are viewed. But over time, I tend to think that the best made items in a category float to the top by more purchases. Even so, I will scroll through a bunch of pages because you never know

Through sales...at least, that is how the MP functions regarding that matter. The more sales you get for a listing, the higher up  on the page it goes (this has nothing to do with enhanced listings). Views are of course included in that, because people can't buy if they don't open your listing page, lol. But buys are the important factor and enhanced listings rarely, if ever actually lead to many of those sales. Odds are better that the person will see your listing NOT in the enhanced listing spot, but rather on the page when searching or merely browsing, and click through form there. 

Like I said...enhanced listings, those advertisements at the top of the home page and on the top pages of categories.....they're all stupid, and a waste of money. They've been that way for ages (look through the threads about them here on this forum if you want more info, but they're pretty boring and say everything I've already said here).

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16 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

You asked why you don't see your own ad, not whether or not impressions actually work. 

But I did answer that question as well. No, it does not work, not as it should work, not as current standards dictate it should work, not in the way such activities work on ANY other website out there that was made after 2000.  But yes it does work by MP standards, which, are very odd indeed

 

If by "how do I know it works" you mean "how do I know if anyone is seeing my ad at all?"( your question isn't really clear yet at this point). You'll know by whether or not your stats page for that ad shows impressions. If it shows that you have indeed gotten impressions, then yes, by that token it "functions". Again, not as it SHOULD., but as it is expected by MP standards...which, again, are not normal standards anywhere in the world..so, take that as you will. 

I'm not overthnking anything, lmao, I simply know how such things work (regardless of cost, they should only function one way, follow one set of current standards, and not use outdated methodologies, also, this is an oooooooold topic, we've discussed it a lot on this forum over the years). My experience is very much universal if you do as I actually said and scroll through the ads, not merely stay on one page and not allow all the ads to load. Go ahead and try it, go tot he home page, or even the top page of any category that has enhanced listings. Now scroll through them, all of them, now refresh and do it again. Bam, you'll see at the very least some of the very same ads all over again. You might have some new ones, in categories where a LOT Of people buy ad space, but you won't find an entirely new set, at least some will always be repeats. That is how it has functioned since day one, and hasn't changed an iota.  Not that it really matters, as I said at the end...it's a worthless endeavor for nearly anyone (and on a personal note, it actually surprises me that anyone even uses enhanced listings at all anymore, but I do suspect some bought it once, or twice and then just have it on repeat, because they've got the funding to do so and never stopped.

But your own experience with never viewing those ads actually answers your own question too, that it does not function as it should (if it did, more of us would look at those ads, lol). That's part of why it costs what it does, because it's so ineffective an advertising method. You're right that such features usually cost a great deal. This one is actually way over cost, imo, given how it works (or does not, as the case may be). Advertising in a virtual space isn't quite as expensive as it is in other places, for other things, but if this were up to current standards, it would definitely cost more (don't give LL any ideas...though truth be told, they'd be complete fools to ever increase this cost, it would be a guaranteed loss of most buyers,)

Through sales...at least, that is how the MP functions regarding that matter. The more sales you get for a listing, the higher up  on the page it goes (this has nothing to do with enhanced listings). Views are of course included in that, because people can't buy if they don't open your listing page, lol. But buys are the important factor and enhanced listings rarely, if ever actually lead to many of those sales. Odds are better that the person will see your listing NOT in the enhanced listing spot, but rather on the page when searching or merely browsing, and click through form there. 

Like I said...enhanced listings, those advertisements at the top of the home page and on the top pages of categories.....they're all stupid, and a waste of money. They've been that way for ages (look through the threads about them here on this forum if you want more info, but they're pretty boring and say everything I've already said here).

Look, you're pre-set to suspect evil and ill will, and then to antagonize, particularly anything from me, as I've seen before, so I won't reply. Others will understand what I'm talking about and get back to me on or off the forums.

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15 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Look, you're pre-set to suspect evil and ill will, and then to antagonize, particularly anything from me, as I've seen before, so I won't reply. Others will understand what I'm talking about and get back to me on or off the forums.

Well you totally ran with that in a direction....I can't even describe, lol.

I sensed absolutely no evil and ill will in your post, whatsoever. I actually answered your questions. Yes, I do know what you're talking about.

The simple answer is.....listing enhancements do not work as we(you, I, everyone) suspects they SHOULD, they only work the way they're coded to work...which is wrong by today's standards. That's not me knocking YOU or your experience...but rather LL and their...eh hem, attempt at creating an advertising method they thought would work.

Re-read what I said and don't start taking offense from the first letter, or assume there's some ill will towards you in any of that, there's really not, lol.  I actually support your belief (because it's an actual fact, not just your belief, or mine, but reality) that enhancements are basically a crock of useless poop. If that's not what you were trying to convey, then disregard everything I said. But if your point was "enhancements aren't working like I think they should"..you're right, and you can read the explanation as to why in my posts, or in the plethora of other enhanced listing threads on this forum. 

:)

Stop being offended all the time just because you're expecting poor treatment. I promise if I intend ill will, it's always VERY obvious, I don't hide it, lol. My ill will on this subject is 100% geared at LL (this should come as no surprise to anyone). 

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20 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

But I did answer that question as well. No, it does not work, not as it should work, not as current standards dictate it should work, not in the way such activities work on ANY other website out there that was made after 2000.  But yes it does work by MP standards, which, are very odd indeed

I don't recall any site that hasn't shown me the same ad multiple times. (YouTube did this constantly.) It's not uncommon that I even see the same ad multiple times on the same page at the same time.

This, of course, only happens on computers that aren't mine and prevent me from installing ad blockers.

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On 1/12/2020 at 4:31 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I merely want TO KNOW IF IT WORKS. It's a mechanical question.

It does work - sort'a - I have tested it a few times and have seen my own ads there.

But look at the statistics. LL only gives you the prints (the number of times your ad has been displayed) but there's plenty of general studies on how effective web ads are so we can make educated guesses about the rest:

With ads as untargetted and with such a low visibility as the front page enhanced listings, you can't really expect a CTR (Click-Through Ratio) higher than 1/1000. That is - to make this absolutely clear - on average you need to have your ad displayed 1,000 time before somebody actually clicks on it.

But of course, not everybody who check out the listing is going to buy, and the ones who are just clicking on a random ad is less likely to buy than the ones who are specifically looking for your product. Let's be generous and say every tenth click-through results in a sale. That means on average you need to have your ad displayed 10,000 times to get a single sale.

I don't know how many prints you can expect these days. Back when I tested the listing enhancements, I usually got about 30-40 prints a week but I've been told it's worse now. However, I want to err on the safe side and say 200 prints a month. That means you should expect one sale for every 50 months your ad is there. Or to put it another way: expect to pay L$ 130,000 in advertising for every sale you make through the enhanced listings.

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4 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't recall any site that hasn't shown me the same ad multiple times. (YouTube did this constantly.) It's not uncommon that I even see the same ad multiple times on the same page at the same time.

This, of course, only happens on computers that aren't mine and prevent me from installing ad blockers.

From a viewer/end user point of view, it works precisely as you'd expect...you get to view ads. That's the end of the viewer involvement until that viewer of the ad then takes their own personal involvement with the ad further (ie. viewing the end product and/or purchasing, etc..)

From a merchant point of view, the one paying for the ad...the methodology LL uses, or rather, methodologies, is as outdated as most other things they do with the MP, and ineffective. It's mechanically dysfunctional as all get out. This can happen when you use outdated methods and code written by someone else you're trying to adapt for your use, but it really isn't well suited. Then again, I don't think anyone wants me re-hashing that old chestnut, rofl. 

 

 

 

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Yet another "question" where the only acceptable answer comes from a predetermined script/expectation on this particular OP's part and anything that deviates from that is treated with open hostility before being brushed aside. This is then followed by more hostility that ends in the OP doing the digital equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears while going "lalalala" and spouting off absolute nonsense ... all while somehow avoiding any reprisal from the moderation team.

Seriously, just leave them to their little echo chamber.

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I had the same doubts as you do have, many times after paying for the ad. I once got so frustrated that I was resetting the front page like hundreds of times :P But it is there.

 But yes.. you literally need to reset the page MANY MANY times, and then also every time scroll through all the other ads that are there at the same time. 

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These are all really good arguments, especially the calculations @ChinRey made. Though I don't do any of the Enhancement advertising to sell that product.

What I'm looking for is discovery. So I only buy the enhancement on a product I think would be interesting enough to the most people to click on, even just for a closer look. My hope is the they will be curious enough to then look at the rest of my offering. As a shopper, I do this all the time. I see something that looks interesting and I want to know more about it, so I'll click the advert and have a look-se. Sometimes, it really looks interesting, but not for me regarding that particular product, so I'll have a quick look at their MP store.

I just want people to know I exist, because if they don't know that, they'll never buy from me. After all of this, though - it becomes a word-of-mouth thing.

Surely it's a numbers game, even when I do that it may be one in ten times that I actually look at there store, but it does happen. So that is my end-goal whenever I choose to buy a listing enhancement.

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20 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

From a viewer/end user point of view, it works precisely as you'd expect...you get to view ads. That's the end of the viewer involvement until that viewer of the ad then takes their own personal involvement with the ad further (ie. viewing the end product and/or purchasing, etc..)

From a merchant point of view, the one paying for the ad...the methodology LL uses, or rather, methodologies, is as outdated as most other things they do with the MP, and ineffective. It's mechanically dysfunctional as all get out. This can happen when you use outdated methods and code written by someone else you're trying to adapt for your use, but it really isn't well suited. Then again, I don't think anyone wants me re-hashing that old chestnut, rofl. 

The two problems you've brought up is that the same person gets the same ad multiple times, and that the ads aren't category specific.

But when I log out of Youtube (because I have Youtube Premium which prevents ads), go to a whatever random video I see on the front page and start refreshing the video page, I'll get the same ads over and over (About 15 times total). I saw an ad for a Finnish grocery store sale 3 times and another ad for Finnair tickets 5 times on the same video, which wasn't about food or flying and I don't travel or look up travel prices.

Does this mean Youtube is also using out of date tech from the 00s? I don't think you realize how ineffective advertising is if you only show it once to every unique person, or what the benefits are for repeating the ad.

Also, the listing enhancements are category-specific. You get to choose the exact category you want your product advertised in.

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3 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The two problems you've brought up is that the same person gets the same ad multiple times, and that the ads aren't category specific.

But when I log out of Youtube (because I have Youtube Premium which prevents ads), go to a whatever random video I see on the front page and start refreshing the video page, I'll get the same ads over and over (About 15 times total). I saw an ad for a Finnish grocery store sale 3 times and another ad for Finnair tickets 5 times on the same video, which wasn't about food or flying and I don't travel or look up travel prices.

Does this mean Youtube is also using out of date tech from the 00s? I don't think you realize how ineffective advertising is if you only show it once to every unique person, or what the benefits are for repeating the ad.

Also, the listing enhancements are category-specific. You get to choose the exact category you want your product advertised in.

I never said they aren't category specific, lmao. The enhanced listings are precisely where the merchant chooses for them to be by selecting the category. I have no idea where you got that idea in anything I posted, because I didn't say anything of the sort, lol.  Enhancements aren't just arbitrarily tossed on top of a category at a whim, the merchant has to pick where it goes.  You have homepage listings, which will show up on the main page of the MP. Then we have top category enhancements, which show up on the "home" or "top" page of a category.  (I honestly have no idea what you're on about that part at all, it makes no sense to me, whatsoever, because I didn't even mention that, anywhere as being a problem). 

The ads you see on many websites, when you see the same ad repeatedly...is by design (and also often includes multiple impressions of the same, or very similar ad...people are specifically paying for THAT ad experience (the people paying for the ad. You, the viewer, get no say...unless you block ads, lol). I never said showing it only once to a person is effective-unique impressions are important though, they SHOULD play a very big role in things and SHOULD exist in the algorithm, but often don't...and yes THAT is an outdated methodology. Just because other companies, websites, programming...use that method too, doesn't make it a good idea. However, using tech that shows the ad to the person PAYING for it, is ineffective, ridiculous, a waste of money, and, well, friggen stupid (and by today's standards, not a current method, most algorithms account for that). People shouldn't be seeing their own ads on the MP.

I answered Prok when it was said that my experience of seeing the same ad multiple times per session was not universal. It very much IS universal and not just my experience, it's by design, it's how the bit of code works. The main problem with it is that unique impressions play almost no role whatsoever, which, again, is not a current standard.  Also, I never stated that seeing the same ad multiple times is necessarily a problem in and of itself. For the MP and how very small it actually is (compared to the vast majority of other websites that tend to all utilize a similar if not the same ad services, and I'm speaking both of "size" and also target audience/user base), this CAN prove to be problematic for some merchants who may take ages to get their enhanced listings seen by anyone at all, much less their target audience. The MP isn't the same as many other websites, in that it needs some unique things, code, programming, methods, whatever have you that is specifically geared towards sl residents (merchants and consumers alike) and the sl experiences that go along with that. Using off the shelf, or out of the box solutions for something like the MP, is a bad road to go down...but it's one LL is holding firm to....for reasons I will never understand, and they will never share.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tari Landar said:

(I honestly have no idea what you're on about that part at all, it makes no sense to me, whatsoever, because I didn't even mention that, anywhere as being a problem). 

I don't either, I must've misread something. Sorry about that.

But you are going on about LL's supposed algorithm that supposedly doesn't work as it should because it supposedly doesn't do things exactly the way you think it should... supposedly.

  • "The ads you see on many websites, when you see the same ad repeatedly... is by design. People are specifically paying for that ad experience."
    • Where do you get the idea that you aren't paying for "that ad experience" on MP? Sounds more like a problem with your own expectations, because I haven't found anything from LL indicating that the "MP ad experience" would be any different.
       
  • "I never said showing it only once to a person is effective."
  • "Also, I never stated that seeing the same ad multiple times is necessarily a problem in and of itself."
    • It was quite strongly implied by your phrasing of the issue, but okay.
       
  • "Unique impressions are important though, they should play a very big role in things and should exist in the algorithm, but often don't... and yes THAT is an outdated methodology."
    • I tend to agree that unique impressions are important, but what you said implies that you know exactly how the algorithm works, which you don't, as you said. Even if "unique impressions played a very big role," (which is a very vague way of defining how things should be different, btw) people would see the same ads. What exactly would you suggest to change? Because as things are now, I don't see issue with showing the same ad to the same person multiple times, because I know that to be more effective than "avoiding" it.
       
  • "Just because other companies, websites, programming... use that method too, doesn't make it a good idea."
    • No, but you were implying that this was some kind of old and deprecated way of doing things, which it is clearly not.
       
  • "However, using tech that shows the ad to the person PAYING for it, is ineffective, ridiculous, a waste of money, and, well, friggen stupid (and by today's standards, not a current method, most algorithms account for that). People shouldn't be seeing their own ads on the MP."
    • Happy to agree.
       
  • "I answered Prok when it was said that my experience of seeing the same ad multiple times per session was not universal. It very much IS universal and not just my experience, it's by design, it's how the bit of code works."
    • And I don't disagree with this. It's how I expected it to work.
       
  • "The main problem with it is that unique impressions play almost no role whatsoever, which, again, is not a current standard."
    • Can you cite some sort of source or comparison for this? Because right now you're just repeating the word "standard" without showing any sort of examples. There's no way for you to figure out how big of a role "uniques" have right now because you don't get that in the report. (You should be able to see that, I agree.)
       
  • "For the MP and how very small it actually is, this CAN prove to be problematic for some merchants who may take ages to get their enhanced listings seen by anyone at all, much less their target audience."
    • Sure, there don't seem to be any tools for us to advertise to a specific group of residents. This is a valid criticism and I hope one day(tm) it'll be possible.
       
  • "The MP isn't the same as many other websites, in that it needs some unique things, code, programming, methods, whatever have you that is specifically geared towards sl residents (merchants and consumers alike) and the sl experiences that go along with that. Using off the shelf, or out of the box solutions for something like the MP, is a bad road to go down...but it's one LL is holding firm to....for reasons I will never understand, and they will never share."
    • MP works pretty much identical to any other big online storefront. You can track the searching and spending habits of each individual avatar and give them advertisements based on that. I don't believe SL residents to interact with MP any different than they would any other online store.
    • I suspect LL might even do this already, because most of the things I see in Featured Items tend to have something in common with what I've bought in the past, and it's different between my alts (my "male alt" sees way more male items). None of them interest me, but they're technically close enough.
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20 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Also, the listing enhancements are category-specific. You get to choose the exact category you want your product advertised in.

LL sells both category specific and front page listing enhancements and it was the front page ones Prokofy was talking about.

Ironically the slightly better targetted category specific listing enhancements are much cheaper than the front page ones (although not nearly cheap enough to be worth the price in terms of direct sales generated).

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It's too late to edit my post so I have to reply to it instead.

On 1/13/2020 at 6:15 PM, ChinRey said:

With ads as untargetted and with such a low visibility as the front page enhanced listings, you can't really expect a CTR (Click-Through Ratio) higher than 1/1000. That is - to make this absolutely clear - on average you need to have your ad displayed 1,000 time before somebody actually clicks on it.

It may be much worse than that. There are 60(!) slots for "featured items" on the front page but only three of them are visible right away. To see the others, you have to click on that arrow button beside them and how many people do that?

So assuming that only one out of 20 "displayed ads" is actually seen by a human being, and assuming my other stipulations are correct enough (if somebody has better data, let us know):

  • Actual prints per month: 20
  • Average time to generate one sale: 500 months (41 years, 8 months)
  • Advertising cost per sale at cheapest rate: L$ 1,299,500
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You seem to be mixing both the end user (the viewer of the ads) and the merchant (the person paying for the ads) experiences together in your replies and expecting a universal answer to your questions. I'll try to address them each. But first...the end user experience with ads is that they see them. That is both the beginning and the end of the user/viewer's experience, like I already stated. There is nothing TO their experience beyond that, there is no expectations f understanding the mechanics, or even understanding the experience of the merchant paying for the ad (which is NOT the same as the end user/viewer...they truly are separate).

22 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"The ads you see on many websites, when you see the same ad repeatedly... is by design. People are specifically paying for that ad experience."

  • Where do you get the idea that you aren't paying for "that ad experience" on MP? Sounds more like a problem with your own expectations, because I haven't found anything from LL indicating that the "MP ad experience" would be any different.

End users see ads, the end users aren't paying for ANY ad experience, they simply receive one (a very limited one).  When I said that people are specifically paying for that experience, I am discussing the MERCHANT experience. When you purchase advertising methods from a vendor, in MOST cases, you are paying for a specific experience that includes a certain number of impressions and nearly always includes specifics (though it's often times in the fine print no one ever wants to read, lol) about repeated ads over the course of X amount of time or uses some other mode of measure (some even include things like per user, etc..).  Where I get the idea that you aren't paying for "that ad experience on MP", is that...you're not. The ad experience (for merchants) doesn't get that specific. Of course you won't see anything from LL indicating that. Why on earth would they say "yes, we don't use the same methods other advertising vendors use", that wild be stupid of them. No advertising vendor would ever do that, it would be stupid of them to do it too, lol.

22 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:
  • I never said showing it only once to a person is effective."
  • "Also, I never stated that seeing the same ad multiple times is necessarily a problem in and of itself."
    • It was quite strongly implied by your phrasing of the issue, but okay.

No, it wasn't, but that was your interpretation of what I said....it just doesn't match up with what I was trying to convey.

22 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"Unique impressions are important though, they should play a very big role in things and should exist in the algorithm, but often don't... and yes THAT is an outdated methodology."

  • I tend to agree that unique impressions are important, but what you said implies that you know exactly how the algorithm works, which you don't, as you said. Even if "unique impressions played a very big role," (which is a very vague way of defining how things should be different, btw) people would see the same ads. What exactly would you suggest to change? Because as things are now, I don't see issue with showing the same ad to the same person multiple times, because I know that to be more effective than "avoiding" it.

I know how the algorithm DOESN'T work, which is what my entire reply, well, nearly all of them really, is about. You don't need to know the exact things involved to know that some things aren't.  It's not a vague way of explaining anything. LL doesn't include unique impressions, end of. Other advertising vendors do, because they realize this should play a much bigger role in advertising methods than it has in the past. There's nothing complicated about that part, lol.

22 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"Just because other companies, websites, programming... use that method too, doesn't make it a good idea."

  • No, but you were implying that this was some kind of old and deprecated way of doing things, which it is clearly not.

See the above. Yes, it is VERY much an antiquated method to not include anything that is commonplace in advertising methods today. And, like I said, other websites that may also use outdated methods (and yes, some of them ARE outdated), doesn't make it a good idea. My point on that stands regardless of the topic, lol. Monkey see monkey do isn't always the best option.

23 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"The main problem with it is that unique impressions play almost no role whatsoever, which, again, is not a current standard."

  • Can you cite some sort of source or comparison for this? Because right now you're just repeating the word "standard" without showing any sort of examples. There's no way for you to figure out how big of a role "uniques" have right now because you don't get that in the report. (You should be able to see that, I agree

The fact that LL doesn't utilize them in the algorithm at all and doesn't report them at all (and they don't, because if they did, they'd have to state it, even if it's in the fine print, so to speak, and...it would be on the report, lol) doesn't follow current advertising methods offered by MOST advertising vendors. That's also kind of obvious.

23 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The MP isn't the same as many other websites, in that it needs some unique things, code, programming, methods, whatever have you that is specifically geared towards sl residents (merchants and consumers alike) and the sl experiences that go along with that. Using off the shelf, or out of the box solutions for something like the MP, is a bad road to go down...but it's one LL is holding firm to....for reasons I will never understand, and they will never share."

  • MP works pretty much identical to any other big online storefront. You can track the searching and spending habits of each individual avatar and give them advertisements based on that. I don't believe SL residents to interact with MP any different than they would any other online store.
  • I suspect LL might even do this already, because most of the things I see in Featured Items tend to have something in common with what I've bought in the past, and it's different between my alts (my "male alt" sees way more male items). None of them interest me, but they're technically close enough.

This is where you're totally mixing up the merchant and end user experiences, and they can't be mixed like that.  No, you cannot track the search and spending habits of individuals, or base your advertisement off that. That is NOT how enhanced listings on the MP work, at all. I don't know if you are, but you might be thinking of the advertising off on the sides of the page (which isn't actually SL related at all, or controlled by LL at all, they is advertising THEY pay for, from another vendor, lol). 

The enhanced listings are just that, enhanced listings, they are NOT specific to the end user, or that person's experience (including spending and search habits). Enhanced listings, regardless of where the merchant chooses to put it (main page of the MP, top page of a category) is NOT targeted marketing, they do not work that way, at all.  Enhanced listings are based entirely on the category the merchant puts it in, there is nothing more specific to it than that. When you buy enhanced listings you are paying for impressions only, and that your chosen item is seen at the top of (insert whatever category you choose). You're not buying targeted marketing, it doesn't play a role in enhanced listings. It's not part of the algorithm, because it's not that KIND of advertising. The fact that you see things in enhanced listings similar to things you've bought is more coincidence than it is intentional, unless of course you're seeing those enhanced listings on a page other than the home page. If you're seeing them in, for example, women's dresses...and you've bought women's dresses before, you're not  seeing the enhanced listing because you've purchased women's dresses before. You're seeing the enhanced listing there because that is where those merchants placed their enhanced listing...because it's a woman's dress, lol. It has nothing to do with your personal experience as an end user, except that you happened to go to the category where such an enhancement has been purchased. 

Targeted marketing is a commonplace thing that merchants pay for when buying advertising methods today. Take ad sense, for example, that uses targeted marketing algorithms to follow your search, spending and web viewing habits to cater the ads you see on websites that have ad sense advertising (most of the time, not always, you'll still see unrelated ads, lol) to those categories of things. So, for example, let's say I do a lot of reading, or searching about gardening....When I go to websites that have advertising (assuming I don't use ad blockers), the ads I will see on the page (in the margins typically, but not always) may very well be garden related. Why? Because that's how targeted marketing works, and it uses various different algorithms to determine the best places, times and to which users, to advertise a merchant's purchased ad. The MP doesn't use that kind of advertising, because listing enhancements don't work that way, they aren't targeted. The lack of targeted marketing methods is one, pretty specific and pretty big, way that the MP method for offering listing enhancements (ie advertising) is an outdated method. Before targeted marketing was perfected (to where we are today with it), all advertising methods functioned without it. 

 

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Perhaps it's time to go into details how these enhanced listings work.

  • There are four different options for enhanced listings: Homepage, Category Landing Page, Checkout Receipt Page and L$0 Cart Checkout Ads Page. The prices differ a lot and strangely, the poorer the quality is, the more it costs.
  • You can choose to pay every 7, 15 or 30 days but the ads are automatically renewed until you cancel. The longer the time period you choose, the less expensive it is.
  • LL does not give any information in advance about how many impressions you can expect. The only way to find out, is to pay, try and see.
  • While your ad campaign runs, you get updates about the number of impressions and click-throughs for the last day, week and month. This data is deleted a month after you have cancelled so there's no performance history.
  • Apart from the merchant's own choice for Category Landing Page, there is no targetting whatsoever.
  • For the Homepage listings 60 ads are selected semirandomly for each page visit. Only three of them are actually displayed on the page, the remaining 57 are hidden with css and the visitor has to actively look for them.
  • Category Landing Pages and Checkout Receipt Pages have "only" 20 enhanced listings but again, only three of them are actually visible on the page.
  • L$0 Cart Checkout Ads Pages display all the selected ads.
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@ChinRey I have used enhancements before.

 

17 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

You seem to be mixing both the end user (the viewer of the ads) and the merchant (the person paying for the ads) experiences together in your replies and expecting a universal answer to your questions.

On 1/14/2020 at 11:25 PM, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"The ads you see on many websites, when you see the same ad repeatedly... is by design. People are specifically paying for that ad experience."

  • Where do you get the idea that you aren't paying for "that ad experience" on MP? Sounds more like a problem with your own expectations, because I haven't found anything from LL indicating that the "MP ad experience" would be any different.

End users see ads, the end users aren't paying for ANY ad experience, they simply receive one (a very limited one).  When I said that people are specifically paying for that experience, I am discussing the MERCHANT experience.

I was also talking strictly from the merchant's point of view. At no point did I speak from the consumer's point of view.

When you said "you see ads on other sites multiple times because that's what merchants are paying for," I responded with "how do you know people aren't supposed to be seeing the same ads multiple times on MP?"

I can't be bothered to get in another hamster wheel with people who don't understand that we're on the same page. Bye.

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1 hour ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"The ads you see on many websites, when you see the same ad repeatedly... is by design. People are specifically paying for that ad experience."

  • Where do you get the idea that you aren't paying for "that ad experience" on MP? Sounds more like a problem with your own expectations, because I haven't found anything from LL indicating that the "MP ad experience" would be any different.

 

1 hour ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

@ChinRey I have used enhancements before.

 

I was also talking strictly from the merchant's point of view. At no point did I speak from the consumer's point of view.

When you said "you see ads on other sites multiple times because that's what merchants are paying for," I responded with "how do you know people aren't supposed to be seeing the same ads multiple times on MP?"

I can't be bothered to get in another hamster wheel with people who don't understand that we're on the same page. Bye.

I bolded the part in my actual answer, which answers that question quite nicely. The word specifically qualifies it, because when you buy ad services from other vendors, you ARE specifically paying for that, it is part of the package, it is discussed/mentioned/whatever, sometimes ad nauseum, in the agreement and/or fine print of that service offering. The enhanced listing offerings from LL don't get that specific, and that is how I know you aren't specifically paying for that experience.  I never said it's not the experience people get, (end users) or buy (merchants), I used the word specifically for a reason, because it tied into the other questions and answers about just wat kind of service LL offers in enheanced listings.

AND yes, you could've fooled me that we were on the same page, since you argued against most of what I said, that's not the same page, at all, lol. 

 

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