I don't ever see any people mentioning this but I have often thought that the whole Adwords (for searches) system may eventually lose business as computer users get more intelligent. Wouldn't organic traffic be much better in the long run? The younger generations coming up almost all know that the Adwords listings are advertisments and so are less likely to click on them. Personally I have never once bought anything from an adwords listing. I may have looked at them when they first started years ago, but I quickly realized they were ads and have favored organic results ever since. It seems that this will become a prevailing attitude eventually and Adwords buys will go down. I especially see this as happening with ClickBank type products since they are mostly ebooks. Most people are on the internet looking for free information, photos, news or to buy real products (not ebooks). Every year, free information becomes more and more available and there is less need to buy anything, especially an ebook. So is there a limited future for Adwords for searches when trying to sell Ebooks?
Well you switched lanes a bit there by suddenly narrowing it down to ebooks - they've always been a bit of a mystery to me, never sold one, never bought one - I've always thought of them as being like vanity publishing. But otherwise you're asking if advertising works. Yes. It does. And just because I realise it's an ad doesn't mean I assume it's not useful - if I'm looking for printer cartridges, a new washing machine - anything, I'll click an ad that tells me that's what they're selling because that's what I want!
I do not think paid ads will go out of style one day just because we know the advertiser is looking to make money back behind the click. Honestly I find natural search listing lacking when it comes to ecommerce goods such as electronics, parts, household items and etc. Natural listing do not seem to be very competitive and price is usually much higher and the website is more out of date. If I am looking for competitive pricing paid ads seem to be the best. If I am looking for information, then the paid ads usually have biased opinions and wont tell you the truth when it comes to a review or price comparison.Natural listings seem to be the best for information and research, however I am cautious even on natural search these days due to affiliates looking for ways to publish biased articles on product reviews. Paid and natural will always have its place in the internet ecosystem and there are still plenty of uneducated youthful web surfers. I would say maybe only 1 in 10 people at best know anything about the paid listings on google. Since we study it and know it so well its hard to imagine that others do not know they exist, but start asking around. You will be surprised to know that most people do not think about the paid listing, or even know that they are paid listings.
The problem with ebooks is that they are content, nothing else. ebooks only ever provide information, on the internet, information is free, regardless of whether or not you think it is. (Enough) people don't pay money for ebooks to make it worthwhile charging for it. Better to give them away and sell memorabilia, or sell doing something with information, after all, information is only worth what you do with it. If SonyBMG, EMI, Universal etc. can't figure out a way to sell content that people actually want (music) at a profit, what hope do you have with an ebook? It's not a factor of AdWords ending, it's a factor of (the sale of) ebooks ending.
Good points by the OP. I think as the younger generation comes through, people will be more conscious of what they click on - meaning less clicks. They'll click on what they want, but the days of mistakenly clicking on adds because their so well blended will be over. Instead we'll have 'forced' ads - like ads that pop up on pages and force you to click 'x' to close, they'll be video ads at the start of videos, ads that appear before the webpage loads. And of course, Google moves to mobile browsing, and its new Mobile phone systems isn't being gone for the good of its health. Its a whole new market for advertising.