Desperate to prove ads work?
Google's apparent desperation to prove its ads are effective might in part be due to an awareness that in fact .... they aren't. I surely cannot be even the 10 millionth internet user to have observed that ads come in exactly two flavours:
1. Months out of date, because I searched for (DuckDuckGo, Amazon, online retail sites etc) and bought what I wanted without going anywhere near Don't Be Evil's services, and have been seeing ads trying to sell the same thing to me ever since, and
2. Hopelessly, witlessly irrelevant: shitty newsboy caps, nasty cosmetics, crappy slippers, a dog's breakfast of consumer tat that I wouldn't order even if it were free.
Precisely who is this avalanche of almost universally lousy advertising supposed to be working on? I'd be interested to see an independent, scientifically-conducted study of internet advertising, connecting ad views to subsequent purchases, because I'm not naive enough to believe a word that Google says.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
