The Paid Click
A reference work on the history, mechanics, and economics of digital advertising — maintained by JJ Jaggers.
01
Before the Click
Direct response roots
1870s–1993
02
The CPM Era
Renting eyeballs
1994–1997
03
The Auction
GoTo and the price of a click
1998–2003
04
Relevance Beats Money
Ad Rank = Bid × CTR
2000–2003
05
The Land Grab
A three-company business
2003–2006
06
The Optimization Decade
When PPC became a job
2005–2011
07
The Second Auction
How social sells interruption
2007–2014
08
The Yellow Pages Comes Back
Mobile, local, pay-per-lead
2011–2017
09
The Machines Take the Wheel
Automation and the black box
2016–2022
10
The Auction After the Click
Privacy, antitrust, and AI
2018–2026
- Recent notes
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The Machine Says It’s Working
How to tell whether an AI-driven Google Ads account is actually working — and why optimization score isn’t it.
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Zero-Click Is the Best Thing to Happen to Paid Search in a Decade
The clicks that vanished were never the valuable ones — and what replaced them reads intent better than any keyword ever did.
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The Arithmetic That Built Search
How a handful of equations turned attention into a priced commodity.
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The Icon That Ate the Internet
How the hamburger menu became mobile’s default door — and why the better-named alternative lost.