Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Snehil Khanor on June 15, 2012 at 4:27pm

and even the first organic link was of no help..

Is even goOgle getting dumber??

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ashish Patil on June 16, 2012 at 7:33pm

flipkart is doing this because junglee and homeshop18 and everyone else are doing this. Its all about incoming links, doesn't matter if the product is not available, but at least a prospective customer is, and the one who is willing to shop online.

So what if flipkart don't have the product customer wants, he *might* end up buying something else. It is always in hypermarket you enter to buy something and end up buying much more other thing even if the product you wanted in first place was out of stock. I see a sense in madness.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Snehil Khanor on June 17, 2012 at 11:08pm

but isnt this an expensive place to advertise for a *might*??
And just because every one else is making mistakes.. is it absolutely necessary for them to do it too??
Wouldn't being intelligent and not to just follow what others are doing make them stand out of the crowd?? After all.. this is the game of last man standing..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Anirudh B Balotiaa on June 17, 2012 at 10:27pm

Interesting view by Snehil...it does make some sense that even if the ad is not relevant for flipkart...it may be intending to get more footfalls and that people will buy something at-least if not the intended one which dictated the search in the first place...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Snehil Khanor on June 17, 2012 at 11:03pm

But won't 90% of those visitors bounceback?

I am looking for a specific product.. whiteboard in this case.. I'm not gonna buy a damn book.

and I can only assume that this must be a super expensive place to advertise at.. so if thesevisits are not turning into transactions.. then isnt it just the waste of money??

shouldnt they save that cost and instead bid higher on some particular keywords related to the products they actually sell??

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Vivek Krishnan on June 19, 2012 at 5:34pm

Right.

Hi Snehil,

To answer this query, there are two things you need to understand - your "assumption" that it is a super expensive place to advertise is wrong. And it might seem like a waste, but not really. Here's why:

1. First off, the cost of advertising in Google search will be upto Rs 10-12 per click - secondly, the Indian search volume for "Buy White Boards Online" is about 140 searches. (~approx Rs 1500-1600/month). Now the online marketing team at FlipKart are not fools.
2. At this point, you will need to understand how these ads appear: Flipkart has not created any ads for "buying white boards online". However, they have used a "dynamic keyword insertion" feature. Which means the ads will automatically take the keyword from your search term and show it in the ad.
3. For a company that has a marketing budget of over a crore, it is not really a very high spend.  Wasting money on such types of ads can mean a few things:
4. • The company gets an insight into what are the products in demand in the current market.
   • Also, I am pretty certain Flipkart is gaining good view through conversions. Which means, you might be a  person who won't be buying anything else other than a white board. But there are enough people who would easily be a buyer once they land on the site.
   • Creating a  brand presence online is usually another reason. Which is very important. You and I might be very much aware about Flipkart, but there will always be people who have only heard about or been at Flipkart at the very first time by clicking through these untargeted ads.

It is like this - you yourself said 90% of the visitors bounce back - but the 10% are ROI.
Cheers. Looking forward for more contemplations with you.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Snehil Khanor on June 21, 2012 at 12:42pm

Actually YES.. If its actually just 10-12rs then I did make a wrong assumption.. Are you sure?? Because it just feels very cheap.. I mean it is the place which is bound to be clicked.. as PEOPLE OFTEN CONFUSES THEM WITH SEARCH RESULTS. So I figured it must be expensive..

But still.. Whiteboard is just one example.. there must be 100 more such cases.. I remember I was once looking to buy Levi's jeans online then also I saw FK's ad up front..

And not all of them would be just 140 searches / month..

So I guess we can safely add two more Zeroes to the 1500-1600 per month figure.. which makes it 150000-1600000 Rs per month.. Which I think is a big deal even if the budget is in crores..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Nishant Agrawal on June 21, 2012 at 1:23pm

I don't buy it.

1. So, Flipkart pays Google Rs. 10 for disappointing customers? Why would anyone advertise a non-existent product just because marketing is cheap?

3. I think they can get insights into the products in demand even without fake advertising. I'm sure they have tools sophisticated enough to track trends and keywords.
4. Sure, people might buy things other than a whiteboard. What would the conversion rate for such incidences be? 1% might be a very optimistic guess. So, to get one customer, Flipkart is ready to shell out Rs. 1000 and disappoint 99 other people?
5. Brand presence, yes. But a bad first impression.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Snehil Khanor on June 21, 2012 at 6:35pm

Although u missed out 2nd point..  But I'ld still give your 5 points a big applause.. ;)

And actually.. best way to gain insight would be to log into you google analytics and navigate to site search to see what users search on your site that you are not selling..

DONT CRAP ON MY GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS.. :|

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Vivek Krishnan on June 22, 2012 at 3:03pm

As an after thought Snehil, no one is crapping on your GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS. It is an advertisement, not the result. And it is the users liability if he happens to clicking on an ad and not finding it useful.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Snehil Khanor on June 22, 2012 at 3:14pm

but these are placed where the Click density is the most.. as it gets your eye.. Its not easy to avoid.. Infact there's been a lot of cases outside india where people have sued google because of these.. and in one such case maybe in australia.. google was even fined.. because some one sued google that i was searching for something and google instead showed me something else in form of an ad above the actual search results.. I'll try n find that article link.. it was in ET.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Vivek Krishnan on June 22, 2012 at 2:59pm

Hi Nishant/Snehil,

Feels great to connect with you guys.

• Flipkart does not really give an inappropriate result. If you click on the Flipkart ad for White Board online - this is what you will get: http://i.imgur.com/c01u0.png. 
• And yes, I searched for "Buy Levi's Online" too. For Levi's, Flipkart does show an ad - but it is a generic ad. As you can see here: http://i.imgur.com/HbM9w.png! Which is a brand building exercise (please note - there are no Flipkart ads for Levis, Levis jeans or of that sort)
• The other points that I mentioned above stand true, because conversion rate of 1% is not an optimistic guess it is rather wrong. Nothing out of arrogance, my current job profile is to handle Facebook and Google advertisement online. And I have seen people purchase products in view through conversions - far away from what they had set off to buy.
• @Snehil - It is true there might be hundred or perhaps 1000s of such cases - I am pretty certain the cost to company is not very high in that. They are able to build a great brand presence in the process and also bag a few transactions. 

Best.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page