8 ms·
It is astounding that with all that tracking data ad quality has not actually improved in 20 years. They are still garbage ads that are still rarely relevant.
by paulie_a 8y ago
It is astounding that with all that tracking data ad quality has not actually improved in 20 years. They are still garbage ads that are still rarely relevant.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bojan 8y agoFor days after I make a purchase I keep seeing ads for the very thing I have already purchased.
- Maro 8y agoEven at big tech companies, a lot of those ML models are fed by nightly jobs, so updated once a day. If the targeting occurs on an outside property, there may be more delay. So if you make a purchase on day X, you should expect to see the ad for another ~48 hours. That's assuming there's logic which actually de-targets you post-purchase.
- oldcynic 8y agoEven Amazon don't get this right and should have unbeatable knowledge of when the sale completes. Their helpful suggestions still only seem to work usefully for books and music.
- Mvandenbergh 8y agoI suspect that's because those are the only things that are easy to model. People buy them: a) based on personal taste b) in volume I just bought a ladder on amazon, what information does that tell them? Since it's the only tool I've bought from them it doesn't tell them much. They now know that I might be willing to buy more tools from them in the future but doesn't help in targeting which kind or how often. Me being a ladder buyer is a very weak signal that I will buy any particular item from them. If on the other hand, I've bought 15 Aubrey Maturin books from them over the last few months, it doesn't take the most sophisticated model to determine that I probably want to buy number 16 next. Or that I might like to read the Horatio Hornblower books.
- nakkijono 8y agoMany people click on those ads due to buyer's remorse. Advertisers pay for clicks, and get what they pay for.
- Retric 8y agoI suspect the odds are well above normal that someone is going to buy a second _. At a minimum _ shows up and doesn't work pushes things above buying for example a vacuum cleaner on a random day.
- oneeyedpigeon 8y agoDo you want the merchant to tell advertisers you've bought that product?
- detaro 8y agomore often than not, the merchant is the advertiser.
- gruturo 8y agoAmazon knows I just bought a fridge. How many fridges per month do they think I need? I keep receiving fridge ads and even on their own website, when logged in, they show me fridge offers.
- oneeyedpigeon 8y agoYou're right in the specific case of Amazon and that product type: their advertising should definitely be more intelligent in that case.
- crtasm 8y agoPerhaps the intention is for the purchase to stay fresh in your mind so you're more likely to mention it to other people? The ads drove you to post here and as a result, I'm reminded amazon is an option for white goods.
- MiddleEndian 8y agoTaken to an entertaining extreme, one advertising approach would be to make ads as noticeably terrible as possible so people complain about them as much as possible.
- tripzilch 8y agoIt's almost as if, no matter what these advertising networks do, you can always reason in hindsight that it profited someone ... It's almost as if, because it's rumoured to have powerful, dark & unknowable Machine Learning behind it, people assume it must be doing something reaaaaaally clever, and we're just not clever enough to realise what it's truly masterminding.
- aldanor 8y agoDitto. I'm being bombarded by airbnb ad (on all possible platforms, e.g. facebook) recommending the exact same house I've already stayed in a few weeks back! Just stop...
- frfl 8y agoYou can avoid much of these issues by browsing in incognito or private mode when purchasing or looking to purchase or something. You can make your life a lot easier using firefox containers + container addons that automatically switch to isolated site-specific containers when browsing ebay or amazon or even facebook. Otherwise you're just inviting all kinds of cookies and tracking without making even hard for them
- dhimes 8y agoThe point is that the ads are a waste, and that the advertisers aren't getting their money's worth. It's really remarkable that they still haven't caught on to this.
- oever 8y agoIs there even a way to check if the google and facebook charge the correct number of advert impressions? Seems to me like they can print money by reporting higher numbers.
- dhimes 8y agoI haven't played that game in a long time, but back then they were the sole determiners of whether a "click" was valid or not. I got charged for clicks for which people only stayed for a second or so. Now there were a lot of people who claimed they can make a decision about purchasing from a website in a second, but I don't think they're thinking it through. I think they were erroneous clicks or competitors, yet I was charged. They may have improved.
- repolfx 8y agoThe ads are not a waste. It's called remarketing and it does boost conversion numbers over raw untargetted ads. The ads are targeting people who went to a site, browsed around, didn't buy but might do in future (much more likely than a random unselected person). Generally the ad network does not know if you really completed a purchase or dropped off during the funnel. Presumably advertisers could set up a hook to inform the ad network if you did purchase or not, but I guess they don't care enough to do so.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- obelix_ 8y agoThat's the customer point of view. Spend sometime with a sales or marketing team esp when they are rolling out a new campaign or product. Targeting makes a big difference even though the conversion rates maybe low. I think personal info, what you view, search for etc can be useful to both sides when both sides are seeking each other out. But when it's one-sided is where things get ugly. When Alex Jones is trying to build a captive herd, the kind of data being misused is not so much your personal info/things you have searched for or viewed, but what I call "counter" type data surrounding the content you produce i.e. likes, retweets, views, upvotes etc. This type of data is what drives the creation of an Alex Jones or a Kim Kardashian. Cause no sane person is out there searching for these clowns. The clowns come into existence only because these count numbers have an influence on people. 14 year old girls from Ecuador to New Zealand look at these counts for guidance on what is hip and that produces a Kim Kardashian with 110 million followers on Instagram. These counter numbers need to be removed/hidden/shown less frequently or with delay and automatically the world will be a diff place. When attacking FB and Google(YouTube), Twitter etc these numbers and their visibility to the uninformed and vulnerable of society is what needs to be attacked. But what happens is people attack the personal info, search and view histories data collection which is actually useful. And that causes unneeded confusion and defensiveness.
- dhimes 8y agoTargeting makes a big difference even though the conversion rates maybe low. The argument is that because the conversion rates are low anyway then the targeting doesn't make a big difference. The sales/marketing guys are just doing what the hivemind says. Maybe I'm unlucky, but I seldom hear one suggest something against the grain. Usually they just say whatever hubspot says.
- sethammons 8y agoMy favorite is getting ads for the thing you already bought from the place you got it where you are very unlikely to need again anytime soon. Most recently for me, it was a plumbing part. Now I have targeted ads everywhere for these parts. Sorry org, I finished my project and I won't be doing something similar, hopefully, ever again.
- ceejayoz 8y agoI can't really blame Google/Facebook for this - they don't necessarily know if you completed the purchase. It's genuinely bizarre when Amazon does it. They know I just bought a $500 vacuum... surely they've got the machine learning chops to teach their algorithm that means I shouldn't ever see a vacuum as a sponsored product for a couple years?
- telot1 8y agoThe thought I've heard floated before is that you might not be happy with your new vacuum you just bought. Some percentage of people that buy anything will not be pleased with the result and that new ad in their face might be enough to push them over the edge to return it and buy what is advertised. Amazon just wants to ensure you buy the replacement from them.
- netsharc 8y agoWell, amazingly, Amazon also has data if the buyer is a crazy returner...
- mszkoda 8y agoI've been getting the same exact thing from Amazon for a month now... I already bought a Miele from you Amazon, you should know I don't need another.
- CamelCaseName 8y agoI think I can do even better, Amazon served me ads for a product that I sell on Amazon. In fact, they were advertising my exact offer, to me! Like come on, I just sent you a bunch of these!
- annamargot 8y agoFrom the merchant side, at least in the industries we’ve worked with, advertising on Fb is close to worthless. With all that data and all those impressions, it ought to at least breakeven. No where close. It’s almost as if their business model’s primary focus is not to connect sellers and buyers. I wonder how Palantir feels about the effectiveness of fb data.
- tripzilch 8y agoGood question. If FB doing all this tracking, keeping records on everyone: 1. doesn't benefit the merchants (by providing better targeting) 2. doesn't benefit the consumers (by providing better targeting) C. I really don't care if they're running a scam, I'm not on FB nor am I advertising on it. Then what the hell do they actually need all this tracking data for?!! All that's left is that it benefits the political influence ecosystem (like you said, Palantir & co). But! We used to believe it benefits the merchants, too (I don't think we ever honestly believed it benefited the consumer, ever). And for all the same, what if in a few months we'll hear political marketing companies and super-PAC whotsits complain that, also for them, FB ads don't really give a great ROI. That it's so much more effective to cold-call people or go door-to-door and do flabby meatspace stuff. Then what? Why are they tracking us? Really, why are the big machine learning data centres tracking us? I'm just saying. Anyone who still thinks this century can't get any crazier hasn't been paying attention.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoI see those as separate issues. I think just because they know what you may wanna buy doesn't mean they can come up with good marketing to sell it to you.
- blitmap 8y agoThis kind of reminds me of the mass surveillance debate. Without transparency we can't know for sure if targeted ads are worth the billions being invested. Empirically I'd be inclined to believe they do effectively pair users with ads they want to see. We create bubbles around ourselves, and because I have trained myself to engage very little with the ads they probably do not get any better at swaying me for a product. Most of us grew up at the start with shitty ads that can't serve us. I bet they they work well against people who don't safeguard their interests. But I don't know.
- baxtr 8y agoI really really wonder if all the tracking nonsense has had any impact on efficacy. I never click any ads, and if I do, I do it very deliberately, to support a website for example.
- pdpi 8y agoTargeted ads aren't targeted because you, as the audience, care about it. It's targeted because I'm the person willing to pay the most for your eyeballs. All the tracking data has done is make it easier for me to target you specifically — it did nothing for how I then choose to use your attention, or what my cost/benefit analysis looks like.
- zerostar07 8y agoContent-based ads are worse , though, depending on the site. I believe ad spending is never going to go down, even if advertising is very ineffective. It's something that you need to do to expand a business and there is no alternative. https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20170401_WBC308.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/...
- maroonblazer 8y agoNot every advertiser makes use of that data. For the ones who do, the targeting has improved markedly in the last 20 years.
- xenihn 8y agoMore than 95% of the ads that I actually notice are ads for things that I JUST bought. Like hours or days before.