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How Much Does the Church of Scientology Spend on Advertising?

Anonycat

Crusader
I'll do my best to explain this as quickly as possible, because it's pretty boring. Here's how cost-per-click advertising works on Google: a company sets a maximum bid that they're willing to pay for an internet user to click on one of their ads. These bids are associated with keywords that internet users type when searching. Based on the ad's relevance to searched keywords and the maximum amount that the advertiser is willing to pay per click, Google determines where to place those ads.

For example, if a dessert company wanted their ads displayed any time a user searches for “ice cream cakes,” it would cost, at the time of writing this article, about $0.60 per click in English-speaking countries.

To figure out how much Scientology pays, I tried to advertise for Scientology myself. I set my maximum bid at one dollar per click and selected multiple keywords involving Scientology. All of my bids were rejected, meaning that the person who is currently paying to advertise on those terms is paying more than a dollar per click.

[article features Google ads for the cult here!]


In order to advertise on the first page of Google’s search results for Scientology-related searches, I would have to shell out a minimum of three dollars per click for “creed of the Church of Scientology.”

Interestingly enough, whoever is advertising for Scientology-related keywords pays a much higher rate to appear when users Google things relating to cults, such as “is scientology a cult?” In fact, they are paying 70 percent more for that one, at a rate of $4.25 per click.

Scientology appears to be the only religion concerned with its cult status. A search for “is Catholicism a cult” shows that zero dollars are spent advertising on this query. The same goes for Presbyterianism, Pentecostalism, Methodism, Judaism, and Islam.

Another way that the Church appears to be advertising is through Google’s Display Network, which is a network of websites that are paid to show ads from Google.

Google has a thing called a contextual targeting tool that provides you with keyword groups and the historical costs associated with advertising for those specific keywords. For example, if you want your ads to appear on blogs that mention “ice cream cakes,” it'll cost you $0.90 per click.

According to Google, here’s how much is being paid to advertise, per click, on keywords relating to Scientology:

"Scientology Religion" $6.91
"Scientology" $6.18
"What Is Scientology" $5.46
"Dianetics" $6.50

Which is a pretty huge amount compared with other religions. Baptist keywords cost $2.77, Catholic ones are $0.92, and Jewish ones are all the way down at $0.55.

Full article: http://www.vice.com/read/how-much-does-the-church-of-scientology-spend-on-advertising
 

10oriocookies

Patron with Honors
Narconon pays a shit load as well. Ive seen $10k used up in a couple days on keywords like drug rehab, holistice drug rehab, etc. Its a great scam for google.

Dont forget about yahoo and bing.
 

BardoThodol

Silver Meritorious Patron
Let me get this straight, if I do a search on those terms, it will cost the CofS money?

Hmmmmm......

I feel this big stupid grin forming across my brain.
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
I'll do my best to explain this as quickly as possible, because it's pretty boring. Here's how cost-per-click advertising works on Google: a company sets a maximum bid that they're willing to pay for an internet user to click on one of their ads. These bids are associated with keywords that internet users type when searching. Based on the ad's relevance to searched keywords and the maximum amount that the advertiser is willing to pay per click, Google determines where to place those ads.

For example, if a dessert company wanted their ads displayed any time a user searches for “ice cream cakes,” it would cost, at the time of writing this article, about $0.60 per click in English-speaking countries.

To figure out how much Scientology pays, I tried to advertise for Scientology myself. I set my maximum bid at one dollar per click and selected multiple keywords involving Scientology. All of my bids were rejected, meaning that the person who is currently paying to advertise on those terms is paying more than a dollar per click.

[article features Google ads for the cult here!]


In order to advertise on the first page of Google’s search results for Scientology-related searches, I would have to shell out a minimum of three dollars per click for “creed of the Church of Scientology.”

Interestingly enough, whoever is advertising for Scientology-related keywords pays a much higher rate to appear when users Google things relating to cults, such as “is scientology a cult?” In fact, they are paying 70 percent more for that one, at a rate of $4.25 per click.

Scientology appears to be the only religion concerned with its cult status. A search for “is Catholicism a cult” shows that zero dollars are spent advertising on this query. The same goes for Presbyterianism, Pentecostalism, Methodism, Judaism, and Islam.

Another way that the Church appears to be advertising is through Google’s Display Network, which is a network of websites that are paid to show ads from Google.

Google has a thing called a contextual targeting tool that provides you with keyword groups and the historical costs associated with advertising for those specific keywords. For example, if you want your ads to appear on blogs that mention “ice cream cakes,” it'll cost you $0.90 per click.

According to Google, here’s how much is being paid to advertise, per click, on keywords relating to Scientology:

"Scientology Religion" $6.91
"Scientology" $6.18
"What Is Scientology" $5.46
"Dianetics" $6.50

Which is a pretty huge amount compared with other religions. Baptist keywords cost $2.77, Catholic ones are $0.92, and Jewish ones are all the way down at $0.55.

Full article: http://www.vice.com/read/how-much-does-the-church-of-scientology-spend-on-advertising

Wow - thank you for explaining all of this - good job! If I go to Scientology websites and click, click, click, click - you mean to tell me that they have to pay for each click :coolwink:?

Are you guys thinking what I am thinking? :blush:

Can they track who has clicked on their websites? :no:

If they cannot track it - I think I am going to click $$$$$$$$$$$ each and every day! :happydance:

Let's make them pay for those pesky ads! Pay and pay and pay!!
 

BardoThodol

Silver Meritorious Patron
Wow - thank you for explaining all of this - good job! If I go to Scientology websites and click, click, click, click - you mean to tell me that they have to pay for each click :coolwink:?

Are you guys thinking what I am thinking? :blush:

Can they track who has clicked on their websites? :no:

If they cannot track it - I think I am going to click $$$$$$$$$$$ each and every day! :happydance:

Let's make them pay for those pesky ads! Pay and pay and pay!!

Does it really matter that they can track it or not? Earnest innocence is such an effective response when caught doing something naughty.
 

10oriocookies

Patron with Honors
Couple thousand SP's clicking church, narconon, Applied Scholastics, WISE, Criminon, CCHR, IAS, RTC sites could be VERY costly. That's just on Google, do a click a day on Bing and Yahoo and it gets even juicier.
 

Anonycat

Crusader
Couple thousand SP's clicking church, narconon, Applied Scholastics, WISE, Criminon, CCHR, IAS, RTC sites could be VERY costly. That's just on Google, do a click a day on Bing and Yahoo and it gets even juicier.

Man, this sounds potentially serious - I hope no one writes a script to click ads.
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Man, this sounds potentially serious - I hope no one writes a script to click ads.

Oh Helluvahoax - WE NEED YOU!! Please, come back and write your "green on white" technical policy's for this " HAT!! Pleeeeeeaaaaaassssseeee:begging:???

Come on Hoaxie!!
 
.
.
From the comments under the article: " How Much Does the Church of Scientology Spend on Advertising?"

http://www.vice.com/read/how-much-does-the-church-of-scientology-spend-on-advertising

"....Having been in the industry more than 10 years, I can tell you don't know much about SEM and the workings of Google Adwords.
There are numerous factors that contribute to an advertisers CPC, none of which you even mention - http://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6297.

Quality score is a huge factor. Google determines the CPC based on a score which is an estimate of how relevant your ads, keywords and landing pages are to the person seeing the ad. The higher the score, the more relevant you are. Google rewards you for a high quality score with lower CPCs because they want relevant results to users - its the google philosophy - "Focus on the user and all else will follow"

The first major factor of quality score is the ad's click-through rate (CTR) - which is how often that keyword led to clicks on the ad. People searching o........"
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
DB: Can we click on it and will it cost the Co$ money? Can they track us? That is all I care to know - not a computer teckie - :wink2:
 

NoName

A Girl Has No Name
[video=youtube_share;UGVUS4xyDW0]http://youtu.be/UGVUS4xyDW0[/video]

Bardo, you need to actually click on the search results to cost them money. That's a problem, because I've heard rumors that visiting cult sites installs keystroke loggers on your computer. Dunno if there is any truth to this, so I just avoid clicking on potential cult links.

Eric? Do you know?
 

NoName

A Girl Has No Name
Isn't hate-clicking illegal?

Paul

:hysterical:

But you raise an interesting point that the Anonymous video addresses. You can't write an autoclicking script because apparently there are algorithms to track malicious clicking to run up bills.
 

Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
So basically don't click on scientology websites - it is not worth it. They are going down all by themselves! The more we stay out of their way - the faster they fall! :happydance:

Lawsuits hitting the fan at an all time high.

Empty buildings - no one new coming in.

People leaving in droves!

David Miscavige exposed for the world to see!

Celeb's getting divorced and looking like fools!

Just sit back and enjoy the Scientology Fail Show 2013!!
 

Anonycat

Crusader
Wow - thank you for explaining all of this - good job! If I go to Scientology websites and click, click, click, click - you mean to tell me that they have to pay for each click :coolwink:?

Are you guys thinking what I am thinking? :blush:

Can they track who has clicked on their websites? :no:

If they cannot track it - I think I am going to click $$$$$$$$$$$ each and every day! :happydance:

Let's make them pay for those pesky ads! Pay and pay and pay!!

Some smarty made this Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click

An excerpt:

Cost per click, along with cost per impression and cost per order, are used to assess the cost effectiveness and profitability of internet marketing. Cost per click has a big advantage over cost per impression in that it tells us something about how effective the advertising was. Clicks are a way to measure attention and interest. Inexpensive ads that few people click on will have a low cost per impression and a high cost per click. If the main purpose of an ad is to generate a click, then cost per click is the preferred metric. Once a certain number of web impressions are achieved, the quality and placement of the advertisement will affect clickthrough rates and the resulting cost per click.

About your question of being traceable: yes, your IP address will be logged, as it is useful to know where in the world your ads are effective or not, and that information can be useful in advertising strategies.

I'm not sure of your IP address concerns, but if you want to use something like TOR, you could.
 
Happy here, been a while for me :)

Ok, I will PREFACE this by saying I am NOT suggesting anyone purposely click on Scientology's PPC ads to possibly cost Scientology more money! I am simply providing INFORMATION that has not been taken into account here:).

Now hear me out here, because these steps will give you MUCH MORE accurate information on Scientology may be paying for Google Advertising:). Use this information to your own digression :p:

If you can't be bother to do this, then just skip to the last step to see what I found out. But this is a definite area of interest for me, so I felt, you know, obliged to mention it(lol):

1) A simple way to work out CPC is to look on Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool‎

2
) You can sign up for an account with Google Adwords very simply through the above link.

3) On the left hand sign you will see "Saved ideas (0)" tab. Click this in minimize it, and you will then see the "broad" match selected. DESELECT this and SELECT "exact" match ONLY. This will tell you the EXACT match for keywords searched. More on this in a moment:)...

4) Most searches are preformed in USA (I think we would instinctively know this is where most searches in English are preformed!). Under "Advanced Options and Filters" make sure you have USA only selected. Then type in "Scientology" and let it DO IT's THING:)...

5) Now select the "keyword ideas" tab underneath (you will see two tabs, the other is "ad group ideas (beta)").

6) On the FAR RIGHT HAND side, under the "keyword idea" tab you will see "Columns". In the dropdown box SELECT "Approximate CPC (search)". This is GIVE you a GOOGLE ESTIMATE on keyword bidding. Not 100%, but gives you a ballpark.

7) Now try this! Click on the new "Approximate CPC (search)" (to sort by highest CPC). You should see keywords "[scientology drug rehab]" with CPC at a WHOPPING $22.04 CPC! Whoaa!!Notice something else: Competition is set at HIGH, meaning Google has determined this is a very competitive term and they are likely paying on the higher end of this $22.04 CPC...

8) If you click this [scientology drug rehab], it will give you option to do a google search. Once you do this, on the search, you will see the Scientology ad. Boom, there you go! Again, this is just for information purposes only... :)

Let me know if you have any questions...
 

BardoThodol

Silver Meritorious Patron
[video=youtube_share;UGVUS4xyDW0]http://youtu.be/UGVUS4xyDW0[/video]

Bardo, you need to actually click on the search results to cost them money. That's a problem, because I've heard rumors that visiting cult sites installs keystroke loggers on your computer. Dunno if there is any truth to this, so I just avoid clicking on potential cult links.

Eric? Do you know?

Think I'll try it on the library's computers, since I go to there a couple of times a week. Let em wade through all those keystrokes of people searching for this that or thuther.

Wonder if you can use keystroke loggers to piggyback unpleasant surprises back to the originator of that program.
 
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