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Can someone ELI5 to me why we can't simply have ads targeted to content instead of to visitors? Native ads do this. It's a huge industry, and will likely get

Can someone ELI5 to me why we can't simply have ads targeted to content instead of to visitors? Native ads do this. It's a huge industry, and will likely get far bigger under GDPR. But it takes highly specialized techniques to make the numbers back out as an advertiser. There's a ton of fraud, the bidding strategy is very different from programmatic/retargeting, the ads that work are different, etc. Most of the ad industry doesn't know how to do this, and many types of ads simply won't be profitable on native networks. From what I'm hearing from my friends that do ecommerce stuff, product ads targeted to the EU are no longer profitable across the board either. That will force a ton of review sites aimed at EU visitors to shutdown, along with many YouTube reviewers. As advertisers pull product ads out of the major ad networks because they can't make money, the revenue of publishers/content creators in the product review space will plummet in lockstep. Amazon has cut affiliate commissions to the point where turning to them is no longer an option for any site that costs money to maintain either. GDPR seems to be on track to wipe out vast swaths of businesses serving the EU market, and not just the "evil" ones it was trying to wipe out. It's a shitshow, but it was entirely predictable.

tannhaeuser 8y ago
Maybe, but ad prices going down, Amazon cutting affiliation commissions, clickbait race to the bottom etc. has happened over a period of the last ten years anyway and is unrelated to GDPR. It hasn't exactly resulted in quality content, or financial stability for content creators, either. A situation where your average page contains tens of tracking scripts wasn't sustainable much longer. If anything, GDPR should be seen as an opportunity to disrupt the quasi-monopolistic online ad market.
- downandout 8y ago
  If anything, GDPR should be seen as an opportunity to disrupt the quasi-monopolistic online ad market. The problem is that the market itself is shrinking (as we speak) as a result of GDPR. There won't be much of a market left to disrupt. Ad targeting got as invasive as it did because that was the only way to make it profitable. The moment that ads stop becoming profitable, advertisers will pull out. This won't be gradual thing for most companies - this will be a next week type of thing. Few companies can afford to light money on fire in the form of ad spend if they can't recoup it. Some ads might still work in the EU, but it will be a dramatically smaller market within a month or two.
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    I think that's a misunderstanding of what the market is in the first place. If there ever was an ad budget, it'll go elsewhere (native advertising, direct sponsoring, whatever). It might be that big media, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink portals with a large target audience get a cut back, to the benefit of small, focused sites and maybe also paywalled content. I'd say that could be another welcome collateral effect of GDPR, and give us back the federated Web we lost, though I'm not sure it'll be world-wide any longer given different incentives in US and EU markets, let alone the Chinese and regional (such as Russian and Turkish) markets.
    - downandout 8y ago
      If there ever was an ad budget, it'll go elsewhere (native advertising, direct sponsoring, whatever). I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. There was quite a bit of money being spent on advertising to people in the EU on May 24th. Due to GDPR, many of the advertisers that were spending this money will no longer be able to make a profit from this activity. They will therefore cease that spend, and the EU online ad market will dramatically shrink as a result. The EU companies that were receiving the money from those advertisers will no longer receive it, and many EU publishers will go out of business.
      - KozmoNau7 8y ago
        If your business model depends on systematically violating people's right privacy, then it needs to die ASAP. Some ad-dependent leeches will die off, good riddance. Let others take their place, with a privacy-friendly model.
        joering2 8y ago
        I love this approach pushing every advertiser and publisher into spit bucket. An analogy here would be someone hating cars' tag readers in public. Law gets passed its illegal, yay! Then 2 months later your car payment goes up 30% and you scratching your head. Yeah well since they couldn't recover enough cars from people who don't pay, they had to adjust their financial models and you are the one to pony up for it. GDPR will wipe out many niche blogs that make few hundred bucks a month top and - as this article clearly points out - will ironically help companies like Google to make more money and jack up pricing for remaining ads, as the whole ad network will get much thinner.
- lajhsdfkl 8y ago
  >If anything, GDPR should be seen as an opportunity to disrupt the quasi-monopolistic online ad market. It's amazing to me how people manage to fool themselves into thinking there is hope when the world is crumbling around them. If Google can't make ads profitable in the EU what makes you think some tiny European company will be able to disrupt the ad market? How would they even do it without tracking? I can see the conversation with major brands now EU Ad Startup - "Trust us, the ads you are paying for are performing great. We are very confident that they are driving conversions on your website." Brand- "Ok, do you have any numbers to prove we are receiving conversions due to your ads?" EU Ad Startup - "No as that would be illegal under GDPR, but please trust our business."
  - camillomiller 8y ago
    Which is how the paper and TV ads industry worked for more than half a century, forcing brands to push creative limits in creating campaigns that we regard sometimes as a pinnacle of arts and media culture. Just because the Internet lets you laser focus a campaign by profiling the shit out of people, it doesn’t mean that is how things should work.
    - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
      > Which is how the paper and TV ads industry worked for more than half a century, forcing brands to push creative limits in creating campaigns that we regard sometimes as a pinnacle of arts and media culture. Just because the Internet lets you laser focus a campaign by profiling the shit out of people, it doesn’t mean that is how things should work. How did the paper and tv industry work? Oh yeah, advertisers would crowd around and bid up the largest players. Small niche products would receive little to no revenue and die quick deaths. That is what I suspect will happen in the EU. Without tracking Advertisers will be unable to know how their ads are performing. Without metrics such as conversions which require end to end tracking advertisers will need to rely on the reputation of the platform. Products such as google and facebook will receive significant attention from advertisers. The tiny blog you enjoy reading that is barely scraping by will receive very little.
Nullabillity 8y ago
> That will force a ton of review sites aimed at EU visitors to shutdown, along with many YouTube reviewers. A reviewer making sales commissions is just a salesperson. Good riddance.
alkonaut 8y ago
> GDPR seems to be on track to wipe out vast swaths of businesses serving the EU market What type of businesses? Do you mean the businesses making vacuum cleaners or the businesses surrounding it like a vacuum cleaner review site?
jcelerier 8y ago
> From what I'm hearing from my friends that do ecommerce stuff, product ads targeted to the EU are no longer profitable across the board either. That will force a ton of review sites aimed at EU visitors to shutdown, along with many YouTube reviewers. As advertisers pull product ads out of the major ad networks because they can't make money, the revenue of publishers/content creators in the product review space will plummet in lockstep. Amazon has cut affiliate commissions to the point where turning to them is no longer an option for any site that costs money to maintain either. and nothing of value will be missed
lotu 8y ago
Native ads don't do this unless you mean something other than the standard definition. Native ad is just an ad that is formatted so it fits with the aesthetic style of the page, (for example it uses the same fonts and colors). This makes the ad less jarring to the user and makes the overall page look better. Many people don't like them for this exact reason, because they say ads should be very obvious and native ads might look like content. Native ads can do tracking the same way non-native ads can. The rest of the comment is more or less spot on though.
- downandout 8y ago
  Native ad is just an ad that is formatted so it fits with the aesthetic style of the page Most native ad networks run based on topics, and the ads themselves are usually not targeted to the individual person. I run ads through major native ad networks such as Revcontent. You choose "topics" to target, and then your ad is shown on content that relates to those topics.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

Maybe, but ad prices going down, Amazon cutting affiliation commissions, clickbait race to the bottom etc. has happened over a period of the last ten years anyway and is unrelated to GDPR. It hasn't exactly resulted in quality content, or financial stability for content creators, either. A situation where your average page contains tens of tracking scripts wasn't sustainable much longer. If anything, GDPR should be seen as an opportunity to disrupt the quasi-monopolistic online ad market.

downandout 8y ago
If anything, GDPR should be seen as an opportunity to disrupt the quasi-monopolistic online ad market. The problem is that the market itself is shrinking (as we speak) as a result of GDPR. There won't be much of a market left to disrupt. Ad targeting got as invasive as it did because that was the only way to make it profitable. The moment that ads stop becoming profitable, advertisers will pull out. This won't be gradual thing for most companies - this will be a next week type of thing. Few companies can afford to light money on fire in the form of ad spend if they can't recoup it. Some ads might still work in the EU, but it will be a dramatically smaller market within a month or two.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  I think that's a misunderstanding of what the market is in the first place. If there ever was an ad budget, it'll go elsewhere (native advertising, direct sponsoring, whatever). It might be that big media, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink portals with a large target audience get a cut back, to the benefit of small, focused sites and maybe also paywalled content. I'd say that could be another welcome collateral effect of GDPR, and give us back the federated Web we lost, though I'm not sure it'll be world-wide any longer given different incentives in US and EU markets, let alone the Chinese and regional (such as Russian and Turkish) markets.
  - downandout 8y ago
    If there ever was an ad budget, it'll go elsewhere (native advertising, direct sponsoring, whatever). I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. There was quite a bit of money being spent on advertising to people in the EU on May 24th. Due to GDPR, many of the advertisers that were spending this money will no longer be able to make a profit from this activity. They will therefore cease that spend, and the EU online ad market will dramatically shrink as a result. The EU companies that were receiving the money from those advertisers will no longer receive it, and many EU publishers will go out of business.
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago
      If your business model depends on systematically violating people's right privacy, then it needs to die ASAP. Some ad-dependent leeches will die off, good riddance. Let others take their place, with a privacy-friendly model.
      - joering2 8y ago
        I love this approach pushing every advertiser and publisher into spit bucket. An analogy here would be someone hating cars' tag readers in public. Law gets passed its illegal, yay! Then 2 months later your car payment goes up 30% and you scratching your head. Yeah well since they couldn't recover enough cars from people who don't pay, they had to adjust their financial models and you are the one to pony up for it. GDPR will wipe out many niche blogs that make few hundred bucks a month top and - as this article clearly points out - will ironically help companies like Google to make more money and jack up pricing for remaining ads, as the whole ad network will get much thinner.
lajhsdfkl 8y ago
>If anything, GDPR should be seen as an opportunity to disrupt the quasi-monopolistic online ad market. It's amazing to me how people manage to fool themselves into thinking there is hope when the world is crumbling around them. If Google can't make ads profitable in the EU what makes you think some tiny European company will be able to disrupt the ad market? How would they even do it without tracking? I can see the conversation with major brands now EU Ad Startup - "Trust us, the ads you are paying for are performing great. We are very confident that they are driving conversions on your website." Brand- "Ok, do you have any numbers to prove we are receiving conversions due to your ads?" EU Ad Startup - "No as that would be illegal under GDPR, but please trust our business."
- camillomiller 8y ago
  Which is how the paper and TV ads industry worked for more than half a century, forcing brands to push creative limits in creating campaigns that we regard sometimes as a pinnacle of arts and media culture. Just because the Internet lets you laser focus a campaign by profiling the shit out of people, it doesn’t mean that is how things should work.
  - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
    > Which is how the paper and TV ads industry worked for more than half a century, forcing brands to push creative limits in creating campaigns that we regard sometimes as a pinnacle of arts and media culture. Just because the Internet lets you laser focus a campaign by profiling the shit out of people, it doesn’t mean that is how things should work. How did the paper and tv industry work? Oh yeah, advertisers would crowd around and bid up the largest players. Small niche products would receive little to no revenue and die quick deaths. That is what I suspect will happen in the EU. Without tracking Advertisers will be unable to know how their ads are performing. Without metrics such as conversions which require end to end tracking advertisers will need to rely on the reputation of the platform. Products such as google and facebook will receive significant attention from advertisers. The tiny blog you enjoy reading that is barely scraping by will receive very little.

Nullabillity 8y ago

> That will force a ton of review sites aimed at EU visitors to shutdown, along with many YouTube reviewers. A reviewer making sales commissions is just a salesperson. Good riddance.

alkonaut 8y ago

> GDPR seems to be on track to wipe out vast swaths of businesses serving the EU market What type of businesses? Do you mean the businesses making vacuum cleaners or the businesses surrounding it like a vacuum cleaner review site?

jcelerier 8y ago

> From what I'm hearing from my friends that do ecommerce stuff, product ads targeted to the EU are no longer profitable across the board either. That will force a ton of review sites aimed at EU visitors to shutdown, along with many YouTube reviewers. As advertisers pull product ads out of the major ad networks because they can't make money, the revenue of publishers/content creators in the product review space will plummet in lockstep. Amazon has cut affiliate commissions to the point where turning to them is no longer an option for any site that costs money to maintain either. and nothing of value will be missed

lotu 8y ago

Native ads don't do this unless you mean something other than the standard definition. Native ad is just an ad that is formatted so it fits with the aesthetic style of the page, (for example it uses the same fonts and colors). This makes the ad less jarring to the user and makes the overall page look better. Many people don't like them for this exact reason, because they say ads should be very obvious and native ads might look like content. Native ads can do tracking the same way non-native ads can. The rest of the comment is more or less spot on though.

downandout 8y ago
Native ad is just an ad that is formatted so it fits with the aesthetic style of the page Most native ad networks run based on topics, and the ads themselves are usually not targeted to the individual person. I run ads through major native ad networks such as Revcontent. You choose "topics" to target, and then your ad is shown on content that relates to those topics.