I partly agree, but burden of proof is often the wrong framing for truth seeking.
The article provides strong evidence that ads are ineffective in certain classes of cases, and that fact in turn provides weaker evidence that ads are ineffective more generally. To support Akshat’s skepticism that the result generalizes, we’d need to evidence or priors that points towards ads being differentially effective depending on the type—targeted keywords vs. brand-ad keywords, and brand presence verus no brand presence.
In the first case, I’m somewhat skeptical that the difference between targeted and brand keywords will be large. My prior for the second difference is that there would be some difference, as Gordon argued in another comment. I don’t know of any evidence in either direction, but I haven’t looked. (The actual result doesn’t matter to me except as an exercise in Bayesian reasoning, but if it matters to you or others, it’s plausible high VoI to search a bit. )
I partly agree, but burden of proof is often the wrong framing for truth seeking.
The article provides strong evidence that ads are ineffective in certain classes of cases, and that fact in turn provides weaker evidence that ads are ineffective more generally. To support Akshat’s skepticism that the result generalizes, we’d need to evidence or priors that points towards ads being differentially effective depending on the type—targeted keywords vs. brand-ad keywords, and brand presence verus no brand presence.
In the first case, I’m somewhat skeptical that the difference between targeted and brand keywords will be large. My prior for the second difference is that there would be some difference, as Gordon argued in another comment. I don’t know of any evidence in either direction, but I haven’t looked. (The actual result doesn’t matter to me except as an exercise in Bayesian reasoning, but if it matters to you or others, it’s plausible high VoI to search a bit. )