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> Twitter has an enormous advantage over Facebook in one key area: while people on Facebook tend to friend their friends, people on Twitter tend to follow their

by mbesto 11y ago

> Twitter has an enormous advantage over Facebook in one key area: while people on Facebook tend to friend their friends, people on Twitter tend to follow their interests. The social graph that makes up Twitter is worth far more on a per-account basis because it is directly monetizable in a way that Facebook’s generally isn’t – you can show prophylactic advertisements to Twitter users based solely on the people they follow, and probably get a much higher rate of interest. Compared to other social display ads, Twitter ads, it is rumored, work extremely well. So, clearly this is from 2012 and the thesis is 100% incorrect (in fact, pretty much inverted). The interesting thing is that this is pretty much how the general populous still thinks Facebook does it's ad targeting. The author massively overlooked machine learning. I don't have first hand evidence, but I can only guess that Facebook is crawling every piece of data possible (pictures, messages, etc) and then draws conclusions of my interests there. In addition to this, all FB user info is being hashed and compared against consumer spending data (e.g. DLX and Acxiom). The level at which FB and Google can target us is staggering. There is a reason these companies make so much money.

shard972 11y ago
> The level at which FB and Google can target us is staggering. I'm so glad I deleted my facebook account years ago for this fact alone. I don't need to give all my information for free to facebook to use what is essentially IM.
mozumder 11y ago
Twitter still has higher ad conversion rates. Machine learning can only do so much. Human editing will always win over machine algorithms, and Twitter users curate their follows. Also, machine learning only improves conversion rates by 2x. Meanwhile, I've seen a 10x conversion rate improvement when hand editing ads on a site. Machine learning ads are why you have out-of-context ads that destroy a sites user experience.
- mbesto 11y ago
  > Twitter still has higher ad conversion rates. Source? Genuinely curious, about to kick off a campaign on Twitter in an esoteric area (triathlon) and can't imagine it will be a higher ROI than FB. > Also, machine learning only improves conversion rates by 2x. Meanwhile, I've seen a 10x conversion rate improvement when hand editing ads on a site. I'm not sure you're following my line of reasoning here (or maybe I'm not following yours). The machine learning becomes useful when I try to target people's behaviors. For example, I say "Facebook I want to run an ad against all people who actively run and get them to buy running shoes". Facebook is going to optimize to serve up ads to people who (1) run (determined by messages they send to people "hey great run, I did 5km last week" or integrations with RunKeeper, Strava, etc, or maybe I have pictures of me running a race) (2) click ads (easy enough) and (3) will purchase online (determined by conversion pixels of previous campaigns). This is a gross oversimplification of course.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    If we're on the subject of citing sources, what are your sources for saying that: > the thesis is 100% incorrect and guessing that: > Facebook is crawling every piece of data possible (pictures, messages, etc) and then draws conclusions of my interests there. In addition to this, all FB user info is being hashed and compared against consumer spending data That's a pretty sweeping statement. You'd be surprised at how naive (and distinctly not-amazing) the machine learning algorithms used in-production at places like Facebook can be (in-production, as opposed to cool research papers that aren't actually used in-production). Going off of your simplified example, there are tons of contexts in which someone might say "run" without meaning anything related to the athletic activity. That's the definition of shitty targeting (false positive).
SyneRyder 11y ago
For all their ability to target us, the ads I get on FB & Google are woefully untargeted. I wish I only saw ads I was interested in, but the hand curated ads from The Deck or on podcasts I listen to are far more relevant to me than Google or Facebook ads are. (Mail Kimp FTW) If that means Facebook & Google have more room for future optimization, awesome... but I fear they really make money off sheer volume of ad inventory. Watch the Facebook ads and how they refresh every couple of minutes - that isn't about extra targeting or clever machine learning, that's just extra inventory of ads charged per impression.

by mbesto 11y ago

shard972 11y ago

> The level at which FB and Google can target us is staggering. I'm so glad I deleted my facebook account years ago for this fact alone. I don't need to give all my information for free to facebook to use what is essentially IM.

mozumder 11y ago

Twitter still has higher ad conversion rates. Machine learning can only do so much. Human editing will always win over machine algorithms, and Twitter users curate their follows. Also, machine learning only improves conversion rates by 2x. Meanwhile, I've seen a 10x conversion rate improvement when hand editing ads on a site. Machine learning ads are why you have out-of-context ads that destroy a sites user experience.

mbesto 11y ago
> Twitter still has higher ad conversion rates. Source? Genuinely curious, about to kick off a campaign on Twitter in an esoteric area (triathlon) and can't imagine it will be a higher ROI than FB. > Also, machine learning only improves conversion rates by 2x. Meanwhile, I've seen a 10x conversion rate improvement when hand editing ads on a site. I'm not sure you're following my line of reasoning here (or maybe I'm not following yours). The machine learning becomes useful when I try to target people's behaviors. For example, I say "Facebook I want to run an ad against all people who actively run and get them to buy running shoes". Facebook is going to optimize to serve up ads to people who (1) run (determined by messages they send to people "hey great run, I did 5km last week" or integrations with RunKeeper, Strava, etc, or maybe I have pictures of me running a race) (2) click ads (easy enough) and (3) will purchase online (determined by conversion pixels of previous campaigns). This is a gross oversimplification of course.
- argonaut 11y ago
  If we're on the subject of citing sources, what are your sources for saying that: > the thesis is 100% incorrect and guessing that: > Facebook is crawling every piece of data possible (pictures, messages, etc) and then draws conclusions of my interests there. In addition to this, all FB user info is being hashed and compared against consumer spending data That's a pretty sweeping statement. You'd be surprised at how naive (and distinctly not-amazing) the machine learning algorithms used in-production at places like Facebook can be (in-production, as opposed to cool research papers that aren't actually used in-production). Going off of your simplified example, there are tons of contexts in which someone might say "run" without meaning anything related to the athletic activity. That's the definition of shitty targeting (false positive).

SyneRyder 11y ago

For all their ability to target us, the ads I get on FB & Google are woefully untargeted. I wish I only saw ads I was interested in, but the hand curated ads from The Deck or on podcasts I listen to are far more relevant to me than Google or Facebook ads are. (Mail Kimp FTW) If that means Facebook & Google have more room for future optimization, awesome... but I fear they really make money off sheer volume of ad inventory. Watch the Facebook ads and how they refresh every couple of minutes - that isn't about extra targeting or clever machine learning, that's just extra inventory of ads charged per impression.