Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend

Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by alacombe on Sunday January 03, 2021 @04:54PM (#25625602)

Ratio can't be negative, they can either be above of below 1. What you are talking about is "$benefit - $cost", not "$benefit / cost".

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by ddulaney on Sunday January 03, 2021 @05:19PM (#25625769)

ROI is (net benefit)/(cost), where net benefit is (gross benefit - cost). Net benefit can be negative, making ROI negative if cost exceeds benefit. GP was using benefit as a shorthand for net benefit, which can certainly be negative.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by loeg on Sunday January 03, 2021 @05:44PM (#25625942)

Even gross benefit could conceivably be negative, if the ads are bad enough! (I.e., a terrible ad might prevent a sale.)

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by rocqua on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:17PM (#25626216)

We tend to call most rations below 1 'negative'. Its technically wrong but most people get what you mean when you say it.

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by ducttapecrown on Sunday January 03, 2021 @07:28PM (#25626674)

Positive and negative are the right words on a log scale :D

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Re:Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their... by benjam47 on Monday January 04, 2021 @02:27AM (#25628610)

Ratio can't be negative, but ROI can. Positive ROI is the percentage of the ratio being 1 or higher. Negative ROI is the percentage of the ratio being less than 1.

Or, from a "common sense" perspective, if I spent $1000 on advertising, and earned $100 in revenue from that investment, my ROI is definitely negative.

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