Click Money from Google: A Digital Dodo?
March 15, 2020
At the beginning of 2020, Google released its 2019 end of year financial report and some amazing surprises were revealed. ZDNet has the details in the article, “The Mysterious Disappearance Of Google’s Click Metric.” For the first time since acquiring YouTube, Google shared revenue for YouTube and its cloud IT business, but they removed information about how much money the company made from clicks or the Cost-per-Click (CPC) plus its growth.
What does this mean for Google? It is even more confusing that the Wall Street analysts did not question the lack of information. The truth is something that Google might not want to admit, but the key to their revenue is dying and they are not happy.
“Google has a rapidly deflating advertising product, sometimes 29% less revenue per click, every quarter, year-on-year, year after year…. Every three months Google has to find faster ways of expanding the total number of paid clicks by as much as 66%. How is this a sustainable business model? There is an upper limit to how much more expansion in paid links can be found especially with the shift to mobile platforms and the constraints of the display. And what does this say about the effectiveness of Google’s ads? They aren’t very good and their value is declining at an astounding and unstoppable pace.”
Google might start placing more ads on its search results and other services. It sounds like, however, Google will place more ineffective ads in more places. Google’s ads have eroded efficiency for years, plus there is the question of whether more bots, less humans are clicking these ads. Clicks do not create brands and most people ignore ads. Don’t you love ads?
Whitney Grace, March 15, 2015
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