Summary
The conversation discusses the topic of political advertising, specifically focusing on the recent controversy surrounding the Harris campaign’s use of text ads on search results pages. The hosts explore the tactics used by the campaign, such as buying keywords and creating misleading headlines to promote positive news articles about Kamala Harris. They also question how the campaign was able to send traffic to websites they don’t own, which goes against Google’s advertising policies. The conversation highlights the lack of transparency and ethical concerns surrounding this practice. In this conversation, Steve and Trevor discuss the advertising strategies of political campaigns, particularly focusing on Kamala Harris’ campaign. They explore the use of search ads and the potential influence they can have on voters. They also discuss a recent update from Google that recommends optimizing towards a single conversion action in Google Ads accounts. They analyze the implications of this update and how it can lead to better quality leads. The conversation ends with a mention of Eric Schmidt’s comments on Google’s decreasing quality and the impact of remote work on startups.
Takeaways
- The Harris campaign used text ads on search results pages to promote positive news articles about Kamala Harris, buying keywords and creating misleading headlines.
- The campaign was able to send traffic to websites they don’t own, which raises questions about Google’s advertising policies and the lack of transparency in political advertising.
- The hosts discuss the ethical concerns of manipulating news headlines to create favorable coverage and the potential for abuse in this type of advertising.
- The conversation highlights the need for more transparency and regulation in political advertising to ensure fairness and prevent misleading practices. Political campaigns invest significant amounts of money in advertising, including search ads, to influence voters.
- Google recently recommended optimizing towards a single conversion action in Google Ads accounts, which can lead to better quality leads.
- Eric Schmidt highlighted the decreasing quality of Google’s products and services compared to startups that have in-person teams.
- Remote work has become a trend in the startup industry, and its impact on productivity and innovation is still being observed.
Sound Bites
- “The Harris campaign, Kamala Harris campaign, they were buying text ads on the search results page where a lot of these, and a lot of them were like news articles.”
- “Are they allowed to send ads not to their websites that they don’t own? I thought you couldn’t do that with Google Ads, but you can just send traffic wherever you want.”
- “How is it allowed? It’s against the terms. Like the example I just gave you about the stress balls, we cannot do. That’s what they’re doing here.”
- “That’s crazy. And that’s only one drop of the bucket as far as like advertising money going into one stream for two weeks, $3 million.”
- “They’re not that expensive, probably. Um, it’s a lot of clicks and not even clicks, man, because a lot of times, right? We talk about, what does it rant talked about? What is it? What was the stat about dead clicks that happens? Like 63 % of clicks are not or 60 after someone searches.”
- “Google is now recommending that teams optimize in Google Ads accounts towards one conversion action.”
Chapters
00:00 Controversy Surrounding Harris Campaign’s Political Advertising Tactics
03:12 Manipulating News Headlines: Ethical Concerns in Political Advertising
06:04 Lack of Transparency in Political Advertising: Google’s Advertising Policies
19:13 The Need for Regulation in Political Advertising: Ensuring Fairness and Preventing Misleading Practices
22:32 Advertising Strategies in Political Campaigns
31:19 Optimizing Towards a Single Conversion Action in Google Ads
46:31 Eric Schmidt’s Comments on Google’s Quality
48:12 The Impact of Remote Work on Startups
