Official site of Dr. Joni Salminen

The Vishnu Effect of Startups (creators/destroyers of jobs)

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

Background In the Hindi scripture there is a famous passage in which the god Vishnu describes himself as death; to Westerners this is mostly known through Oppenheimer’s citation: “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” But, there is another god in Hinduism, Brahma, that is the creator of the universe. How does this relate to startups? Just like these…

A major change in AdWords – How to react?

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

Introduction Google has made a major change in AdWords. Ads are now shown only in the main column, no longer in the right column. Previously, there were generally speaking eight ads per SERP. For some queries, Google didn’t show ads at all, and additionally they’ve been constantly testing the limit, e.g. running up to 16 product listing ads per results page. But…

How to prevent disruption from happening to you? AKA avoiding the “Vanjoki fallacy”

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

Introduction A major issue of corporations is how they can avoid being disrupted. This is a commonly established issue, e.g. Christensen discusses it in his book “Innovator’s dilemma”. But I’m going to present here a simple solution for it. Here it is. Rule Number 1: Don’t look at absolute market shares, look at growth rates I call this the “Vanjoki…

European financial crisis – the next steps?

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

Introduction With this post, I’m anticipating the next phase of debate on European financial crisis, as the problem of asynchronous economies isn’t going away. The continent is currently riddled with the refugee crisis, but sooner or later the attention will return to this topic which hasn’t been properly dealt with. The problem In brief, there are two countries: Country A –…

The correct way to calculate ROI for online marketing

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

Introduction This is a short post explaining the correct way to calculate ROI for online marketing. I got the idea earlier today while renewing my Google AdWords certificate and seeing this question in the exam: Now, here’s the trap – I’m arguing most advertisers would choose the option C, although the correct one is option A. Let me elaborate on this.…

Carryover effects and their measurement in Google Analytics

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

Introduction Carryover effects in marketing are a tricky beast. On one hand, you don’t want to prematurely judge a campaign because the effect of advertising may be delayed. On the other hand, you don’t want bad campaigns to be defended with this same argument. Solutions What’s the solution then? They need to be quantified, or didn’t exist. Some ways to…

Chasing the “true” CPA in digital marketing (for Pro’s only!)

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

This is a follow-up post on my earlier post about “fake” conversions — the post is in Finnish but, briefly, it’s about the problem of irreversibility of conversions in the ad platforms’ reporting. In reality, some conversions are cancelled (e.g., product returns), but the current platforms don’t track that. So, my point was to include a ‘churn coefficient’ which would…

Online ad platforms’ leeching logic

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

We had a great discussion with Mr. Lauri Pitkänen about unfair advantage in business – e.g., a gift card company’s business model relying on people not redeeming gift cards, investment banker’s relying on monopoly to take 7% of each new IPO, doctor’s controlling how many new doctor’s are educated, taxi driver’s keeping the supply low through licenses, governments inventing new…

Kun konversio ei ole konversio: Kvasikonversion idea ja todellisen CPA:n laskeminen

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

On tilanteita, joissa konversioiden määrä ja sitä myöten laskettu CPA ovat harhaanjohtavia. Erityisesti tällainen tilanne on, kun lasketun konversion jälkeen tapahtuu karsintaa (esim. liidien klousaus, korkea palautusprosentti, affiliate-huijaus). Miten siinä tapauksessa tulisi laskea CPA? Kaava on yksinkertainen: (1/(1-k))*CPA, jossa k on mitatun konversion jälkeinen katoprosentti CPA on konversion kustannus Esimerkki: Vaatealan verkkokauppa mainostaa mainosalustassa x. He laittavat mainontaan rahaa 1000…

I hate to see investors coming into a growing startup… here’s why

Published by Joni on March 29, 2017

I hate to see, from a customer’s perspective, investors coming into a growing Web startup. Because it only means rising prices. The logic is this: 1) the investors need a positive return, and 2) the startup is growing because it has created something valuable, in most cases significantly more valuable than what it is charging from the customer. Therefore, the…

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