There are growing interests in understanding how word-of-mouth (WOM) on the Internet is generated and how it influences consumers' purchase decisions at retail outlets. A unique aspect of the WOM effect is the presence of a positive feedback mechanism between WOM and retail sales. We...

This paper analyzes how the presence of organic listing as a competing information source affects advertisers' sponsored bidding and the equilibrium outcomes in search advertising. We consider a game-theoretic model in which two firms bid for sponsored advertising slots provided by a...

This paper studies the effects of various types of online advertisements on purchase conversion by capturing the dynamic interactions among advertisement clicks themselves. It is motivated by the observation that certain advertisement clicks may not result in immediate purchases, but they...

The two leading online consumer-to-consumer platforms use very different revenue models: eBay.com in the United States uses a brokerage model in which sellers pay eBay on a transaction basis, whereas Taobao.com in China uses an advertising model in which sellers can use basic platform service...

Social media platforms such as Facebook show ads with popularity or general endorsement signals such as “likes”. Additionally, these ads can display social endorsement from friends (i.e., friends’ “likes”). This paper examines the effectiveness of displaying these different signals on...