One of the great -- although I suspect inevitable -- sins of the early web was the "innovation" of tracking clicks on advertising. Ads had been around for over a century before that in other media, and the only real measure of success available to advertisers was "when I spend money on ads in this [magazine, newspaper, TV show, radio spot, billboard, …], sales appear to go up by this amount, compared to spending money on [other thing]." Selling ads based on the notion that the only effective web advertisement is the one that makes the viewer stop reading that article, right now, and drop everything to CLICK! RIGHT! THIS! MOMENT! was, in the light of all previous advertising history, absolutely bonkers.
One of the great -- although I suspect inevitable -- sins of the early web was the "innovation" of tracking clicks on advertising. Ads had been around for over a century before that in other media, and the only real measure of success available to advertisers was "when I spend money on ads in this [magazine, newspaper, TV show, radio spot, billboard, …], sales appear to go up by this amount, compared to spending money on [other thing]." Selling ads based on the notion that the only effective web advertisement is the one that makes the viewer stop reading that article, right now, and drop everything to CLICK! RIGHT! THIS! MOMENT! was, in the light of all previous advertising history, absolutely bonkers.