Imagine if the same commercials that aired during Friends in the early 2000s were still paired with the episode, getting exposure from every re-run.

That's what's happening with digital ads.

In the screenshot above, Jon found my newsletter from an ad that I ran in a previous edition of Josh Spector's For The Interested newsletter. I paid $100 and saw an amazing initial return, but I never thought about the long tail effects of having an ad in a newsletter that gets reposted as an article on a website.

As long as Josh has his website up and running, there's a chance that someone stumbles across the old newsletter that contains my ad and I get the benefit from it.

Same thing goes for YouTube.

I was watching a video from several years ago and it was sponsored by a company that is still in business and while I'm sure the affiliate link that the creator mentioned was no longer active, the business is still essentially getting free long-term advertising.

Think about all the ads you've seen that are embedded in static content across the internet.

While it would be hard to create a pricing model that reflects the potential long-term value, it's interesting to think about.