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I have a question about Facebook, they seem to spend tremendous effort to create engagement. Arguably at the detriment to society. Why are the ads so terribly

I have a question about Facebook, they seem to spend tremendous effort to create engagement. Arguably at the detriment to society. Why are the ads so terribly targeted? They are an ad company with immense data collection and at the end of the day the ads are equivalent to a niche cable network

1_2__4 9y ago
Because ad targeting is so the advertiser can show you want they want you to buy, rather than what you want to buy. No part of the process is oriented towards finding what you want and giving it to you. It’s for finding out who you are so they can exploit you.
- 549362-30499 9y ago
  I don't think that distinction is meaningful. The digital ad market is frighteningly sophisticated and coldly logical. You are shown ads for things that optimize what you're likely to buy/click multiplied by how much the ad buyer makes when someone actually does buy or click. Talk to anyone on the buy side of the ad market - these ads work. They really do show you the things that you want to buy, even if those things surprise you.
  - pishpash 9y ago
    They work over what baseline? I think they are all treading water, and have to buy ads because competitors do.
    - 549362-30499 9y ago
      They work in the sense that you can predictably purchase customers and users. I don't know what you mean by treading water. People who buy these ads do it because it's profitable, not because they trying to keep up with some competition.
richforrester 9y ago
Because company [X] thinks the target for product [Y] is [Z]. That's my guess anyway. And I work in (and/or closely with) marketing. .edit: Come to think of it, I want to elaborate on that. Think about search engine optimisation. It's in a similar vein. "A guy walks into a bar, bars, pub, tavern, pulic house, irish pub, drinks, beer, acolhol, bar stool" etc. My point is; people that are trying to sell 1 thing, might focus on reaching AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, over focussing on getting the right (but smaller) audience.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  That happened in the late 90's with online ads. It's just weird that Facebook is a juggernaut of data collection and hasn't been capable of doing anything new or better for targeting ads
  - richforrester 9y ago
    Again, it's not Facebook. It's the companies using the platform. Don't blame the tool. Blame the person wielding it.
    - paulie_a 9y ago
      So Facebook as an advertising company has not made a better tool?
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Facebook doesn't profit off of targeting things well. It profits off of selling high-value audiences and targeting options to advertisers. There's a significant difference between the two. Let me be a bit more specific. You remember the weirdness of seeing ads for mesothelioma lawsuits on network TV? It seems way too specific to be worthwhile to advertise to general audiences. But that's missing how profitable each lead is - if a lead is worth a hundred times as much for mesothelioma as buying a Star Wars toy, you only need a hundredth of the audience interest in order for the ad slot to be price competitive. Essentially, you're seeing the most valuable advertisement in the eyes of the advertiser, given the tracking and metrics that Facebook exposes to advertisers. It gets some weird effects, like getting tracked visiting the website of the coding bootcamp you graduated from, putting you in an "interested in coding bootcamps" category that Facebook sells to advertisers, getting you the least relevant ads possible.
bunderbunder 9y ago
Because ad targeting algorithms are limited by the data that's available to them. And most of the data they can get by watching your browsing habits produces terrible, near-useless signal, like a list of all the random bullshit you browsed to from sites like Buzzfeed. Or Facebook. Or Hacker News.
gdulli 9y ago
All that data collection is a leaky abstraction. People share browsers, look up stuff they have no ongoing interest in out of one-time curiosity, buy something as a gift, search for something they actually hate to find something about it to say in a debate about it, buy tickets for a movie they don't want to see because their friends want to, click on something outside of their interests just because it went viral, etc. And all that real world demographic data that gets bought and sold and tied to these online identities, it's not very accurate.
aembleton 9y ago
I find the ads to be better targeted than any others that I have seen. It's actually the thing that impresses me the most about Facebook. I thought Google would be the ones to accurately target me, but they are often advertising JetBrains IDEA which I've been using for years. Facebook often has local events, and small businesses advertising to me. That is more like the advertising that I want and I have actually clicked through and purchased from them.

1_2__4 9y ago

Because ad targeting is so the advertiser can show you want they want you to buy, rather than what you want to buy. No part of the process is oriented towards finding what you want and giving it to you. It’s for finding out who you are so they can exploit you.

549362-30499 9y ago
I don't think that distinction is meaningful. The digital ad market is frighteningly sophisticated and coldly logical. You are shown ads for things that optimize what you're likely to buy/click multiplied by how much the ad buyer makes when someone actually does buy or click. Talk to anyone on the buy side of the ad market - these ads work. They really do show you the things that you want to buy, even if those things surprise you.
- pishpash 9y ago
  They work over what baseline? I think they are all treading water, and have to buy ads because competitors do.
  - 549362-30499 9y ago
    They work in the sense that you can predictably purchase customers and users. I don't know what you mean by treading water. People who buy these ads do it because it's profitable, not because they trying to keep up with some competition.

richforrester 9y ago

Because company [X] thinks the target for product [Y] is [Z]. That's my guess anyway. And I work in (and/or closely with) marketing. .edit: Come to think of it, I want to elaborate on that. Think about search engine optimisation. It's in a similar vein. "A guy walks into a bar, bars, pub, tavern, pulic house, irish pub, drinks, beer, acolhol, bar stool" etc. My point is; people that are trying to sell 1 thing, might focus on reaching AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, over focussing on getting the right (but smaller) audience.

paulie_a 9y ago
That happened in the late 90's with online ads. It's just weird that Facebook is a juggernaut of data collection and hasn't been capable of doing anything new or better for targeting ads
- richforrester 9y ago
  Again, it's not Facebook. It's the companies using the platform. Don't blame the tool. Blame the person wielding it.
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    So Facebook as an advertising company has not made a better tool?

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

Facebook doesn't profit off of targeting things well. It profits off of selling high-value audiences and targeting options to advertisers. There's a significant difference between the two. Let me be a bit more specific. You remember the weirdness of seeing ads for mesothelioma lawsuits on network TV? It seems way too specific to be worthwhile to advertise to general audiences. But that's missing how profitable each lead is - if a lead is worth a hundred times as much for mesothelioma as buying a Star Wars toy, you only need a hundredth of the audience interest in order for the ad slot to be price competitive. Essentially, you're seeing the most valuable advertisement in the eyes of the advertiser, given the tracking and metrics that Facebook exposes to advertisers. It gets some weird effects, like getting tracked visiting the website of the coding bootcamp you graduated from, putting you in an "interested in coding bootcamps" category that Facebook sells to advertisers, getting you the least relevant ads possible.

bunderbunder 9y ago

Because ad targeting algorithms are limited by the data that's available to them. And most of the data they can get by watching your browsing habits produces terrible, near-useless signal, like a list of all the random bullshit you browsed to from sites like Buzzfeed. Or Facebook. Or Hacker News.

gdulli 9y ago

All that data collection is a leaky abstraction. People share browsers, look up stuff they have no ongoing interest in out of one-time curiosity, buy something as a gift, search for something they actually hate to find something about it to say in a debate about it, buy tickets for a movie they don't want to see because their friends want to, click on something outside of their interests just because it went viral, etc. And all that real world demographic data that gets bought and sold and tied to these online identities, it's not very accurate.

aembleton 9y ago

I find the ads to be better targeted than any others that I have seen. It's actually the thing that impresses me the most about Facebook. I thought Google would be the ones to accurately target me, but they are often advertising JetBrains IDEA which I've been using for years. Facebook often has local events, and small businesses advertising to me. That is more like the advertising that I want and I have actually clicked through and purchased from them.