The grail

Great article from the current issue of The Economist, suggesting that we're on the right track in enabling precise, pay-per-sale advertising:

But even the pay-per-call model may turn out to be only an intermediate step towards the ultimate in advertising efficiency, which would be a pay-per-sale approach. This is what Bill Gross has recently started offering at SNAP, a search engine that he founded. United Airlines, for instance, places text links on SNAP's search pages, but it pays (about $10) not when somebody clicks or calls, but only when somebody actually buys a ticket. Eventually, argues Mr Gross, 100% of advertising will follow such a pay-per-sale approach-- although he won't guess how soon-- because this is “the holy grail of advertising.”

We're on the quest...