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> GDPR Twitter data export and it included me in a bunch of incorrect, non-sensical and contradictory ad targeting groups. This is expected. It's not desirabl

by wdr1 8y ago

> GDPR Twitter data export and it included me in a bunch of incorrect, non-sensical and contradictory ad targeting groups. This is expected. It's not desirable, but it is expected. The problem is your comparing it to an absolute. I.e. to perfect. If advertisers had that choice, they would love it. They generally don't. Remarketing is kinda close, but limits the scale. Rather, the only other scalable options are far worse. Think about it. What are the marketers other choices? The one that should come to mind, and the one they spend most of their money: TV. With TV you pick up a huge amount of waste. Say you buy a spot on Big Bang because you want people thinking of buying a new iPhone. Not a big stretch, right? At the same time thinking of all the other people they have to buy, who watch the ad, and aren't buying an iPhone. It's waste. And that waste is huge relative to what you're talking about above. So you're asking the wrong question here. It's not how good is the targeting in terms of precision/recall. The question is what's better? The waste here is generally known & its priced accordingly. > I was very disappointed that the Google and Facebook data exports don't contain this data. It's in my Facebook export. Under "Information About You" did you uncheck "Ads"? That's where the information is contained & it's checked by default. You can also view it here for both FB & Google, as well as opt of both: https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/advertising https://www.facebook.com/about/basics/advertising

marcosdumay 8y ago
> Rather, the only other scalable options are far worse. Is it really worse than "this article is about X, Y is related, let's show some ads for Y"? I bet from the point of view of the advertisement middlemen it is not. Because they capitalize mostly on showing ads of products that people already decided to buy or are very near deciding. But that is yet another racquet that only decreases the value of the industry. My question is, from the point of view of the real advertisers (the ones selling something), is it really worse?
- dmoy 8y ago
  Right but the advertising budgets for things actually related to articles or other media content are vastly dwarfed by the advertising budgets for unrelated things that actually make more revenue/profit. So you'll end up having to try to monetize something that has little no no related things that are profitable to advertise.
madeofpalk 8y ago
Looking at the hundreds of mostly incorrect or irrelevant demographics that Twitter has be in, I would still say there’s a huge amount of waste going on. At least with offline advertising (like TV or print) the “fuzziness” is very explicit. Here, Twitter sells you that you can target “dog owners”, but nowhere through the Twitter ad buy process does it tell you how BS that targeting is.
- scarface74 8y ago
  And that's why Twitter is not doing as well as Facebook. Facebook doesn't need algorithms to know what you are interested in, where you like to eat, etc. You explicitly tell them in your info and by what types of articles you like and share, and what you post.
  - nl 8y ago
    Twitter is the same, except even more-so. People tweet 10+ times a day, update FB status infrequently. All the things FB has done to extract things like resturant data etc are product development they undertook. Twitter spent 10 years moving form 140 characters to 280 instead.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Even if that is true, when people sign up for Facebook, they fill out a bio telling FB their work history, their school affiliations, who their family members are, their hometowns and current cities, they check in where they are at, tell FB their favorite books, music, tv shows, thier gender, relationship status, thier sexual preference, and thier political party affiliation. Everyone doesn't fill out everything, but a lot of people do.
      - nl 8y ago
        That's exactly my point. There is no reason why Twitter couldn't have done the same 5 years ago. And no reason that they can't do it now. (Also people are just as likely to follow and talk about things like tv shows and music and politics on Twitter as FB)
tjoff 8y ago
> What are the marketers other choices? Advertise on a tech site, 80+% will be interested in tech. Advertise on a dog community site is probably pretty spot on if you want to target dog owners... Far better than what, 5% ? This isn't rocket science, we sold everyones integrity for pennies. > who watch the ad, and aren't buying an iPhone. It's waste. No, advertisements like that are more about selling the brand than selling iphones. Something TV is probably pretty good for.
- tzs 8y ago
  > Advertise on a dog community site is probably pretty spot on if you want to target dog owners... That would probably target dog enthusiasts or dog hobbyists or dog fanatics, which are all subsets of dog owners. I think that one of the things that makes social media ad targeting so attractive to advertisers is that they can target the dog owners, instead of just the enthusiasts/hobbyists/fanatics.
- robryan 8y ago
  As long as the algorithms are close to or better than this model why would they bother? One is all automated and the other is a lot of work dealing with individual websites (even if it is just a matter of manual targeting settings)
  - tjoff 8y ago
    I'd say they are much much worse, but they are scalable and cheaper so that kind of makes up for it. But the only one who cares is the middleman. They are the only ones that benefit from the scale.
- wdr1 8y ago
  > Advertise on a dog community site is probably pretty spot on if you want to target dog owners... Big brands struggle with UGC. Witness the events of YouTube & brand safety. But even without that, what you're saying just isn't scalable. What community site can reach even 50% of dog owners -- let alone what a primtetime sitcom or YouTube can reach? > No, advertisements like that are more about selling the brand than selling iphones. Something TV is probably pretty good for. What? Sure, they have campaigns running for awareness, recall, perception. But you're really saying Apple doesn't dramatically increase its spend when a new phone is released? That's poppycock.
ianai 8y ago
I’ll tell you one thing that’d be better: prices and wages that make sense. I shouldn’t be faced with dozens of subscriptions just to lead basically the same life I did over a decade ago with half those subscriptions (or fewer). And being paid 5x what I made then shouldn’t feel like I’m making it work but not saving much. And I shouldn’t be getting sales calls over 4 months after having used TrueCar.
perl4ever 8y ago
Traditionally, it wasn't necessarily considered a waste to give people a positive feeling about your brand even if they weren't the specific ones who wanted to buy, because everybody talks to everyone else. I think advertisers have been chasing a chimera via targeting, because not only doesn't it work well, but there is a trade-off to maintaining a brand.

by wdr1 8y ago

marcosdumay 8y ago

> Rather, the only other scalable options are far worse. Is it really worse than "this article is about X, Y is related, let's show some ads for Y"? I bet from the point of view of the advertisement middlemen it is not. Because they capitalize mostly on showing ads of products that people already decided to buy or are very near deciding. But that is yet another racquet that only decreases the value of the industry. My question is, from the point of view of the real advertisers (the ones selling something), is it really worse?

dmoy 8y ago
Right but the advertising budgets for things actually related to articles or other media content are vastly dwarfed by the advertising budgets for unrelated things that actually make more revenue/profit. So you'll end up having to try to monetize something that has little no no related things that are profitable to advertise.

madeofpalk 8y ago

Looking at the hundreds of mostly incorrect or irrelevant demographics that Twitter has be in, I would still say there’s a huge amount of waste going on. At least with offline advertising (like TV or print) the “fuzziness” is very explicit. Here, Twitter sells you that you can target “dog owners”, but nowhere through the Twitter ad buy process does it tell you how BS that targeting is.

scarface74 8y ago
And that's why Twitter is not doing as well as Facebook. Facebook doesn't need algorithms to know what you are interested in, where you like to eat, etc. You explicitly tell them in your info and by what types of articles you like and share, and what you post.
- nl 8y ago
  Twitter is the same, except even more-so. People tweet 10+ times a day, update FB status infrequently. All the things FB has done to extract things like resturant data etc are product development they undertook. Twitter spent 10 years moving form 140 characters to 280 instead.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Even if that is true, when people sign up for Facebook, they fill out a bio telling FB their work history, their school affiliations, who their family members are, their hometowns and current cities, they check in where they are at, tell FB their favorite books, music, tv shows, thier gender, relationship status, thier sexual preference, and thier political party affiliation. Everyone doesn't fill out everything, but a lot of people do.
    - nl 8y ago
      That's exactly my point. There is no reason why Twitter couldn't have done the same 5 years ago. And no reason that they can't do it now. (Also people are just as likely to follow and talk about things like tv shows and music and politics on Twitter as FB)

tjoff 8y ago

> What are the marketers other choices? Advertise on a tech site, 80+% will be interested in tech. Advertise on a dog community site is probably pretty spot on if you want to target dog owners... Far better than what, 5% ? This isn't rocket science, we sold everyones integrity for pennies. > who watch the ad, and aren't buying an iPhone. It's waste. No, advertisements like that are more about selling the brand than selling iphones. Something TV is probably pretty good for.

tzs 8y ago
> Advertise on a dog community site is probably pretty spot on if you want to target dog owners... That would probably target dog enthusiasts or dog hobbyists or dog fanatics, which are all subsets of dog owners. I think that one of the things that makes social media ad targeting so attractive to advertisers is that they can target the dog owners, instead of just the enthusiasts/hobbyists/fanatics.
robryan 8y ago
As long as the algorithms are close to or better than this model why would they bother? One is all automated and the other is a lot of work dealing with individual websites (even if it is just a matter of manual targeting settings)
- tjoff 8y ago
  I'd say they are much much worse, but they are scalable and cheaper so that kind of makes up for it. But the only one who cares is the middleman. They are the only ones that benefit from the scale.
wdr1 8y ago
> Advertise on a dog community site is probably pretty spot on if you want to target dog owners... Big brands struggle with UGC. Witness the events of YouTube & brand safety. But even without that, what you're saying just isn't scalable. What community site can reach even 50% of dog owners -- let alone what a primtetime sitcom or YouTube can reach? > No, advertisements like that are more about selling the brand than selling iphones. Something TV is probably pretty good for. What? Sure, they have campaigns running for awareness, recall, perception. But you're really saying Apple doesn't dramatically increase its spend when a new phone is released? That's poppycock.

ianai 8y ago

I’ll tell you one thing that’d be better: prices and wages that make sense. I shouldn’t be faced with dozens of subscriptions just to lead basically the same life I did over a decade ago with half those subscriptions (or fewer). And being paid 5x what I made then shouldn’t feel like I’m making it work but not saving much. And I shouldn’t be getting sales calls over 4 months after having used TrueCar.

perl4ever 8y ago

Traditionally, it wasn't necessarily considered a waste to give people a positive feeling about your brand even if they weren't the specific ones who wanted to buy, because everybody talks to everyone else. I think advertisers have been chasing a chimera via targeting, because not only doesn't it work well, but there is a trade-off to maintaining a brand.