Writers have pretty well 0 (and that's a big zero) control over what sales and advertising practices are used by the company they are writing for either as staff or freelance. But they can write what they want as long as its approved by editorial.

Likewise, the sales teams have pretty well 0 (and that's a big zero) control over published editorial content. But they have a lot of pull in implementing any and all kinds of analytics, a/b testing, and so on.

This doesn't surprise me at all. But it is funny.