"This is because in the last 18 months, there has been a
marked shift in how vendors value website advertising.
They've come to realize that website ads tend to be less
effective than they once were. Given that I've never
bought a single item by clicking on an ad on a website,
this conclusion seems correct in the small."
This is an interesting trend. I for one, have stopped advertising on adwords completely, and now looking for ways to do content marketing or cold calling. I remember paying $2 for a click and thinking wow, not a single purchase after 100 clicks later just an obscure request for more information.
We now also have adblock proliferating so most people don't even see the ads, I myself, a huge user of this extension, in particular the adblock plus which goes even further.
Hopefully, the adwords have gotten cheaper per click, but I doubt it for some niches.
What would happen when websites can't support themselves any longer through banner ads? I think if a business that relies on ad revenues and they have no plan B then they are in trouble. This would also mean bad news for large social media companies that rely solely on sale of ads. Google has already well diversified their operations but such is not the case for twitter or facebook (whiche people use to chat with each other now, as more people would choose to unfollow a typical social media whore).
We now also have adblock proliferating so most people don't even see the ads, I myself, a huge user of this extension, in particular the adblock plus which goes even further.
Hopefully, the adwords have gotten cheaper per click, but I doubt it for some niches.
What would happen when websites can't support themselves any longer through banner ads? I think if a business that relies on ad revenues and they have no plan B then they are in trouble. This would also mean bad news for large social media companies that rely solely on sale of ads. Google has already well diversified their operations but such is not the case for twitter or facebook (whiche people use to chat with each other now, as more people would choose to unfollow a typical social media whore).