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Firms’ reactions to public information on business practices: The case of search advertising

Author

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  • Justin M. Rao

    (HomeAway, Inc.)

  • Andrey Simonov

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

We use five years of bidding data to examine the reaction of advertisers to widely disseminated press on the lack of effectiveness of brand search advertising (queries that contain the firm’s name) found in a large experiment run by eBay (Blake et al. 2015). We estimate that 11% of firms that did not face competing ads on their brand name keywords, matching the case of eBay, discontinued the practice of brand search advertising. In contrast, firms did not react to the information pertaining to the high value and ease of running experiments—we observe no change in the experiment-like variation in advertising levels. Further, while 72% of firms had sharp changes in advertising suitable for estimating causal effects, we find no correlation between firm-level advertising effects and the propensity to advertise in the future. We discuss how a principal-agent problem within the firm would lead to these learning dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Justin M. Rao & Andrey Simonov, 2019. "Firms’ reactions to public information on business practices: The case of search advertising," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 105-134, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:qmktec:v:17:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s11129-018-9203-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11129-018-9203-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Berman, Ron & Heller, Yuval, 2020. "Naive Analytics Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 103824, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay & Victor J. Tremblay, 2022. "CEO Bias and Product Substitutability in Oligopoly Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-23, March.
    3. Brett R Gordon & Kinshuk Jerath & Zsolt Katona & Sridhar Narayanan & Jiwoong Shin & Kenneth C Wilbur, 2019. "Inefficiencies in Digital Advertising Markets," Papers 1912.09012, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Advertising effectiveness; Search advertising; Firms’ behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising

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