First, I find it hard to believe that $2.78 is really generated via online referral; I imagine some >data integrity problems or sampling problems are leading to a large skew. I expect the >marginal value of an additional unique visit to GiveWell is much less than $2.78.
That sounds plausible to me too. Insofar as I’m ultimately concluding that this sort of media courting isn’t justified by the short-run impact, then using an optimistic figure for impact-per-clickthrough is the conservative assumption. Would still be useful to get into this more if someone wants to run an ‘on-line advertising to GiveWell’ project (which is something I’d love to see come out of .impact or EA Ventures—it’s an idea that’s been floated for quite a while).
Additionally, I also suspect that people coming to GWWC and pledging based mostly on an >article are going to be lower-quality pledges in terms of the amount that is actually donated.
Yes, my anecdotal view from previous media rounds was that people who saw GWWC online and immediately joined were a) giving a lot more anyway; b) giving to what are probably less effective organisations. HOWEVER, there are two big aspects of GWWC-related impact from media that are neglected by focusing on immediate member growth: 1) Media attention reaches out to important people who we wouldn’t otherwise be able to contact. GWWC’s largest single donor influence (who’s donated >$8mn (mainly to a DAF) and who attributes 90% of this to GWWC) was via media influence; our contacts in UK government were through media attention; 2) Member increase is normally fuelled by multiple exposures to GWWC, and the media can be a good first exposure. Because of this, quantitative impact assessment is very hard; hence a lot of refection and attempts to be common-sensey.
I have this worry as well. But it’s also possible that while higher-quality articles get lower >viewership, they may get higher-quality viewership in terms of increased response and >conversion rates from the viewers that are attracted.
Yeah, the ‘shit spreads’ explanation would also make sense of some oddities about who the most most high-profile influencers are—I think that Dawkins’ crazy behaviour online probably contributes to his popularity-as-measured-by-twitter-followers.
Additional reason against controversiality is that it keeps option value—you can always be more controversial later on. However, I’m also starting to notice that it’s very difficult to control this aspect—things that don’t seem controversial to me can get regarded as highly controversial, often through crazy misreading. Example: if you actually read ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’ by Bjorn Lomborg he says this like ‘obviously climate change is happening and it’s bizarre that people would even question it’ (not an actual quote) yet in the media he was painted as a climate denier.
Doesn’t GiveWell already run a lot of Google Adwords? How well do those do?
They do, because they get them for free. I don’t know how well they do.
Hi Peter, thanks for the great comments!
That sounds plausible to me too. Insofar as I’m ultimately concluding that this sort of media courting isn’t justified by the short-run impact, then using an optimistic figure for impact-per-clickthrough is the conservative assumption. Would still be useful to get into this more if someone wants to run an ‘on-line advertising to GiveWell’ project (which is something I’d love to see come out of .impact or EA Ventures—it’s an idea that’s been floated for quite a while).
Yes, my anecdotal view from previous media rounds was that people who saw GWWC online and immediately joined were a) giving a lot more anyway; b) giving to what are probably less effective organisations. HOWEVER, there are two big aspects of GWWC-related impact from media that are neglected by focusing on immediate member growth: 1) Media attention reaches out to important people who we wouldn’t otherwise be able to contact. GWWC’s largest single donor influence (who’s donated >$8mn (mainly to a DAF) and who attributes 90% of this to GWWC) was via media influence; our contacts in UK government were through media attention; 2) Member increase is normally fuelled by multiple exposures to GWWC, and the media can be a good first exposure. Because of this, quantitative impact assessment is very hard; hence a lot of refection and attempts to be common-sensey.
Yeah, the ‘shit spreads’ explanation would also make sense of some oddities about who the most most high-profile influencers are—I think that Dawkins’ crazy behaviour online probably contributes to his popularity-as-measured-by-twitter-followers.
Additional reason against controversiality is that it keeps option value—you can always be more controversial later on. However, I’m also starting to notice that it’s very difficult to control this aspect—things that don’t seem controversial to me can get regarded as highly controversial, often through crazy misreading. Example: if you actually read ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’ by Bjorn Lomborg he says this like ‘obviously climate change is happening and it’s bizarre that people would even question it’ (not an actual quote) yet in the media he was painted as a climate denier.
They do, because they get them for free. I don’t know how well they do.