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I would be absolutely astounded if targeted ads did not provide significant long-term advantage to a big player like Google. How can it be that having intimate

by MarkMc 8y ago

I would be absolutely astounded if targeted ads did not provide significant long-term advantage to a big player like Google. How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? Having said that, I'm constantly surprised by how bad Google is at targeted advertising. For example, today when I visit nytimes.com I see an ad from Google with the ad text in French. Hey Google, despite my recent visit to Paris I don't speak French - maybe your AI experts could analyse my 13 years of Gmail and search history to figure that out! PS: I'm a Google shareholder, so my confirmation bias is in the other direction :)

Nursie 8y ago
>Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? Perhaps the question is whether that turns to sales and engagement, or if people who don't click ads don't click ads regardless of content, and those that do, do.
maxxxxx 8y ago
Maybe the cost for effective targeted advertising is too high. You have to collect a ton of data and analyze it which costs a lot of money. Maybe untargeted are more cost effective.
rock_hard 8y ago
You be surprised how much less sophisticated Googles and Facebooks ad targeting is! We are far away from a machine classifying you as being single and going to the gym every day or liking BMW and having gotten a promotion. Not that I don’t think we couldn’t get there...but today these system are far away from it! Just go to your Facebook ad settings to understand how primitive the information is they have about you. But I agree that targeted ads (as primitive as they are) are more efficient then I untargeted ads
- codq 8y ago
  Perhaps there's some kind of Baader-Meinhof phenomena going on here. When a targeted ad is creepily accurate and on point, people flip and think that the machines have figured us out. But the ads that are irrelevant just fly by us without a hit. The one-out-of-a-hundred ads that get it right, likely due to an ad targeter's lucky strike, are the ones that get under our skin, and the only ones we really notice.
  - adzicg 8y ago
    I read somewhere (can’t remember the book name unfortunately) that Tesco in the UK faced this problem when they started sending out personalised coupon booklets based on loyalty card purchases. People were freaking out. Then they started adding coupons to the booklet designed to be irrelevant - say if they figured out that someone was newly pregnant, they’d send a few pages of baby stuff, but also inject lawn mower coupons and stuff only men would care about. That achieved the whole targetted effect and avoided looking creepy for just a few pennies more.
    - fyfy18 8y ago
      I remember during college I was working at Tesco, and a customer way buying a lot of baby food, and she had received some Clubcard coupons for them. I asked her if she had grandchildren, she said no, but her husband really likes baby food.
      - dazc 8y ago
        A niche yet to be exploited?
    - dazc 8y ago
      You still get that if you shop online, everything you ever bought suggested as an add on to your basket. I can see how this could cause embarrassment and, maybe, awkward questions if one's partner also uses the same account.
    - tivert 8y ago
rusk 8y ago
My experience of targeted advertising is Amazon trying to sell me things I’ve already bought ...
- distances 8y ago
  And Booking pushing advertisements for the exact same hotel I've just checked on their service. I can't understand how that would seem like a good idea to anyone.
  - pelario 8y ago
    I've thought the same (and heard the same booking "blunder"), until I visited a city I had visited before, and went for the exact same hotel...
    - TuringTest 8y ago
      Surely that would make sense the next time you visit the city, not for the same visit.
      - bdamm 8y ago
        There’s some marketing theory about brand reinforcement near a purchase creating a more likely customer later. I’m not a marketer though.
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        The easiest way to get "brand reinforcement" is to deliver a good product. I will remember them. Right now it seems they want to get "brand reinforcement" through constant nagging which already causes me to dislike the brand.
    - dhimes 8y ago
      But did you need an ad to get you to do that? Seems like that's the one ad you don't need to see.
dredmorbius 8y ago
I've heard directly from Google ads eng that it does not.
YouKnowBetter 8y ago
> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? It allows you to sell more ads to the marketing people since it sounds very compelling. So there is your model. The fact that I am still shown ads for items of the complete opposite (football) team that I am clearly (online visible, on FB, in my gmails, from my google search history, from my chrome browsing habits) fan of; show the targeting is still... moderate to say the least.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Google has probably put in you in the category interested in "sports", without giving it a second thought.
epanchin 8y ago
Why does Steve like the BMW 3 series? I contend it is due to untargeted ads.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  Or because Steve regularly goes on business trips and has rented the 3 series in the past. That's basically why I want a Mazda 3, because I drove it for 2 weeks and it was fun.
retSava 8y ago
Perhaps that's what google want you to believe, much like how Target scared people off with their targeted (heh) marketing that outed, among things, that a teenager was pregnant due to the things she started buying. After those events, they started inserting random ads to give a plausible chance that the very-targeted ads were random. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#50705a1e6668 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
tomjen3 8y ago
You and I might, a prior, believe that they would be much more valuable, but after 10 years and with some of the sharpest minds in the world working on the problem, facebook has never once shown me an ad for something I wanted. I have as far as a recall only twice clicked on ad on google with intent to acquire the item (as opposed to just clicking on the ad rather than go to the homepage of a company). If you could actually create ads for things that I would want, personalized ads are probably worth more. I just don't think it is possible with current technology.
- ehnto 8y ago
  Sometimes it would pick up on keywords in my messages, but I rarely talk about things I wanted to buy. I'm a very satirical individual so if I mention a product it's most likely because I'm making fun of it. Making the advertisements extra ineffective.
Mirioron 8y ago
It's not Google that's bad at this, but the people buying the ads and selecting the targets. And if targeted ads wasn't a thing then a large portion of your ads would be in a different language.
throw0u1t 8y ago
Does Steve need an ad to remind him that he likes the BMW 3 series? No doubt one of the first steps he took after his promotion was look up the prices, or finance offers on BMW 3 series, perhaps create a spec and then talk to his partner about it if he has o e. The thing is if there is something I want to buy, or own at some point in my life, I don't tend to forget about it or need some reminder from a targeted ad. If it's something I really want I'll usually think about it daily. On the other hand, there could be something that I need, and have never searched for, that I have forgotten about such as going out and buying more toilet roll.
- tomassre 8y ago
  I don't think the purpose is to remind him in the BMW case but to get him to purchase it at dealer X instead of dealer Y. They would be the ones making the ad, targeting someone X miles from them, who is interested in BMW's.
- character0 8y ago
  Perhaps he could be reminded. Car just won an award, which would direct him to look up more info about the car and why it's considered good. Maybe they just made an update to the car model he likes, but is not aware of this change.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    Maybe that'll give him a slight nudge toward buying the thing he was already going to buy, but how valuable is that nudge? BMW has a lot more to gain by providing that info to someone who isn't already into their cars.
    - lmm 8y ago
      You don't make these decisions in one go. One ad doesn't make someone who isn't into cars go out and buy a BMW. The money is in tipping someone who's been thinking about getting a BMW for a while over the edge.
mtgx 8y ago
Then you should try buying some Google Display ads sometime. See how quickly Google wastes your money, because the tools it provides are nowhere close to the targeting you may have in mind. The audiences you'll get to target even after a lot of manual fine-tuning will still feel too generic. But they'll also still be expensive because everyone else also thinks the data is super-targeted so they throw a lot of money at it, increasing bids.
duxup 8y ago
It does make sense the way you describe it. But the ads I see are way off target. Hell Google's news ... AI or whatever they're doing has been absolutely convinced I'm a Nebraska Cornhuskers fan, probabbly because my team plays them and I google something about them once in a while.... but in the past even when I told Google directly "I don't want to see stories about Nebraska Cornhuskers" ... after a while it again becomes convinced I'm a huge Cornhuskers fan. I'm just not sure these systems are ... that effective. Not to say it is easy, the systems have to be really complex / interesting.
- taurath 8y ago
  I can’t help but think the only thing most people buying ads go for is demographics (age gender race income) rather than more personal interest targeting, since that’s been the primary driver of TV ads for the past many decades. Interest targeting seems like it doesn’t work, or if it does the interest based ad buys are few and far between.
  - duxup 8y ago
    That's an interesting point. I wonder if ultra granularity ... isn't really the current state... At one point it was sure that I was female (am not, have never been) too.... to their credit they figured it out after a year or so, but man the ads. But that was at least a limited run of confusion.
- piquadrat 8y ago
  Google News for the longest time kept showing me updates for the Fremantle Dockers, an Australian football team (I'm Swiss, and never set foot on Australian soil). I wonder why...
  - duxup 8y ago
    Yeah I've gotten some ultra disconnected bits too. I'm really curious how those happen.
    - 8y ago
lucideer 8y ago
I think this is just it though. Everyone assumes targeted advertising works, because it seems self-evident that it should. And the only people likely to have significant data on whether it works have a vested interest in convincing everyone that it does work (regardless of whether that's true or not). It may be that targeted ads are more effective, but some counters to your points: > John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. A wedding anniversary is a significant thing–some John's may be swayed by an advertisement, but many would consider it a bit of a cheat not to put more "novel" thought into it. > Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Frankly, the former of those two data-points could mean anything. Much of what advertisers believe about consumer habits of single people could easily be correlation. As for the latter, anyone with a daily gym routine is less likely to want to change it. Selling gym membership to someone speculatively hoping to start going to the gym is a better bet, but much harder to track. > Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Going back to the anniversary gift—I seriously doubt many people are much swayed by one-off ads in buying something as significant as a car (unless Steve has 10+ cars, in which case the promotion is less relevant). This is case where untargeted ads definitely have a much bigger role (Steve sees many BMW ads passively over a number of years). It may be there's some cases were targeted ads are extremely effective, and some where they're not. And—as you've pointed out—it may be that Google et al. aren't really incentivised to actually be good at targeting as long as their advertisers believe they're good at targeting (which goes hand in hand with market dominance).
- soared 8y ago
  You grossly misunderstand digital advertising or your bias has completed clouded your logic. > A wedding anniversary is a significant thing–some John's may be swayed by an advertisement, but many would consider it a bit of a cheat not to put more "novel" thought into it. No idea what you mean here by cheating or novel thought. We're talking about whether knowing that info allows you to have more successful advertising compared to random chance. Serving John ads for roses, chocolates, and vacations will be more effective than serving those ads to a random person. >Frankly, the former of those two data-points could mean anything. Much of what advertisers believe about consumer habits of single people could easily be correlation. Correlation is the whole point. If someone who is single and goes to the gym is correlated to certain purchases or behavior, you can advertise those. And being single, a woman, and a gym-goer isn't super valuable by itself but combined together you can advertiser women's athletic clothing that is functional but also attractive. > As for the latter, anyone with a daily gym routine is less likely to want to change it. Selling gym membership to someone speculatively hoping to start going to the gym is a better bet, but much harder to track. Again, you don't understand advertising. If I know someone goes to the gym every day I'm not going to advertise gyms to them. I'm going to advertise water bottles, protein, healthy meal kits, athletic clothing, etc. > Going back to the anniversary gift—I seriously doubt many people are much swayed by one-off ads in buying something as significant as a car We're not selling Steve a car with targeted ads. We're taking his promotion and propensity towards bmw to assume hes wealthy and likes luxury goods. You advertise more expensive goods to him, rather than cheap ones.
tivert 8y ago
> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? I think there are a few factors: 1. Targeted ads are more likely to show people things they're already familiar with. The ads are more "expected" so there's less novelty. Untargeted ads can inadvertently hit wants and needs that aren't part of the user's tracking profile. Closely related to that: targeted ads can induce their own special kind of fatigue. If all you see are diet ads because your profile says you want to lose weight, you're going to get really sick of seeing diet ads. The targeting actually works against effectiveness. 2. Targeted ads are much more exploitable by scammers. See: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-strange-brands-in-your-instagram-feed/550136/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-s.... This leads to a greater erosion of trust. The expense of traditional and untargeted advertising weeds out such scams. 3. Building a good user profile is hard. If you get it right, you have the problems I described in #1. If you get it wrong, you're blasting someone with ads that are completely off the mark (like weight loss ads for a very healthy and fit person). 4. If a user sees one targeted ad a week, that ad is likely to punch above its weight. If they see 50 targeted ads every day, the effect is much different. They're more likely to develop negative emotional reactions to the ads, as they gain awareness and get creeped out by the tracking and attempted manipulation.
tokyodude 8y ago
You're probably right but ... I don't have any data on my own actually behavior, only my feelings. If I search for "React" on Google and ads for react based services or other software services appear it doesn't bother me. If I'm on stackoverflow or jsfiddle and there are ads for software dev related products and services great! If I'm on Polygon and see ads for games, perfect! It's when I see targeted ads unrelated to the activity that I feel angry, annoyed, upset. For example I viewed some apartments on an apartment site. Then I went and checked movie reviews on yahoo (japan) and every ad was for that exact apartment I looked at. It's not just creepy it's anger inducing. I'm not interesting in looking at apartments. I'm looking at movies. It's like the sales person from the last store I visited followed me into the movie theater and is badgering me to buy the clothing I looked at So, I'd basically like to believe there's 3 tiers 1. 100% un-targeted, random ads 2. Content targeted. Video game ads on a video game site. Or BMW ads on an article about BMWs 3. User targeted. Being tracked all over the net to try to divine what I want and showing me ads for that. It's easy to believe 2 and 3 are better than 1. I want to believe 2 is as good as 3, maybe better since it's not creepy.
Angostura 8y ago
Except that more typically, if I buy a pair of shoes I am then followed around by footwear ads for the next month.
- StreamBright 8y ago
  Or you talk about shoes... :)
StreamBright 8y ago
Now removing the names: >>> User1 has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. User2 is single and goes to the gym every day. User3 just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. User4 is overweight but has just gone on a diet. There, no identities and you can still advertise. Is it hard?
sigi45 8y ago
My biggest issue is, i can't remember when i clicked on a ad and was not closing that tab asap. It would be really nice to see those people buying to understand it more. Amazon for example still shows me washing machines after i purchased one through amazon. But that feature is still here on a high traffic user landing page! Perhaps it matters for products which are clearly build for a very specific target (like a startup selling a shopping service to 30 year olds which work all the time) but there might also be a lot of standard products which everyone would buy? Dog food, dog toys etc. Also i often enough see companies paying (at least those are ads) for there own name. When you enter 'Miele' (well known german company for washing machines and other stuff). You get an ad for miele.de but miele.de is already the first hit. The same when googling 'Samsung S9'.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? It's possible that some combination of efficient markets, semi-inaccurate/incomplete tracking data and chaos theory combines to make it mostly irrelevant. So Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series, but advertising to him is useless because he has already decided to buy a BMW 3 series. Whereas Larry has had the same job for ten years, and the same Ford for ten years, but if you put a luxury car ad in front of him it may get him to take a test drive and actually create a new customer. The data says Mary is single and goes to the gym every day, but it only thinks she's "single" because she's in a committed long-distance relationship and isn't interested in dating anyone else. And she's a fitness expert who is willing to spend her time researching fitness products, so she already knows everything there is to know about those products, already buys the ones she wants, and advertising them to her isn't going to create any new exposure. Whereas Jane never goes to the gym, so you might actually sell her a gym membership or a piece of fitness equipment because she doesn't already have one or know anything about it yet. John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up, but he has also known exactly what he's going to do for years. Whereas he has a third cousin whose wedding is coming up and has no idea what to get, so you should be showing him ads for toasters and flatware rather than jewelry and chocolate. In general, you may do better to advertise your stuff to the people who aren't already interested in and knowledgeable about it. Which actually looks kind of a lot like random scattershot rather than targeting.
- kuwze 8y ago
  The real issue imho is that there is no shared sales information. So you advertise BMWs to people who may have already purchased a car. I think that is a bigger issue.
  - krisroadruck 8y ago
    This happened to me both times I've purchased a Jeep. I did a bunch of research on models and packages, price shopped a few dealers in my area, and then purchased a vehicle all over the course of a Saturday. For the next 3 months I get jeep ads following me all around the internet. I wonder how much revenue those completely irrelevant ads generated for google.
JAlexoid 8y ago
You're listing interests... Using that just reminds people of their desires. John has a 10y anniversary - will make John focused in buying stuff, he'll need exposure to new products... Not ads for stuff that he already looked at. John is probably not an amnesiac. Mary is single and likes gym - doesn't make her more interested in gym clothes, she's already well aware of the gym clothes... Steve getting a promo bundled with him liking BMW will be a total waste of a ad target. He already knows the cars and will buy a BMW with or without an ad from any car manufacturer. Going on a diet implies that you know what diet you're going on. In short retargeting is great at reminding people of what they like. It's really not great at acquiring new customers. I worked on this stuff and it's flashy, but ultimately just a great way to siphon off marketing budgets out of corporations. Don't sell your stock just yet. The product is useless, but it's a scam that is as prevalent as organized religion
DeusExMachina 8y ago
I think it also depends on the quality of the targeting. We tend to think that these companies know us very well, but (anecdotally) that's not my experience on Facebook. There is a page where you can see a list of things Facebook thinks you like. In my case, it's full of things I don't care about and I would never buy. They are there because, according to that page, I clicked on some ad at some point. Which I don't remember, so it might well be five years ago. So I get targeted by ads I am not interested in at all. A random ad has more chances to capture my attention than something targeted on a non-interest.
polskibus 8y ago
Maybe it's the willingness to click a random ad from a curated set that I haven't seen before instead of clicking on things that have been forecasted as interesting to me, but I already know about them?
j-c-hewitt 8y ago
It's not necessarily Google but the advertisers using the platform and how the ad is configured. Google itself addresses these kinds of ambiguities all the time but if the user puts coarse configuration on it, then it will do what the user told it to do like show French ads to non-French speakers who just visited the country.
specialist 8y ago
I've worked on recommenders for a big brick & mortar with significant e-commerce. Our team's recommender algorithms were marginally effective. Despite having significant data on our customers. The new new thing is "personalization". We'll see if that helps. If I had to guess, broadcast and individual targeting both (can) work, but the middle ground is fool's gold. IMHO, I'd like to see renewed emphasis on improving search, browse, foraging. I generally know what I want, but still struggle to find it.
baxtr 8y ago
I am in my mid-30s and I have never ever bought anything that was advertised to me. Ever. I couldn't even say why. Sure, I click on the first links in the google SERP, but just because I am lazy ass.
darkerside 8y ago
Well, you remember that French advertisement, don't you? Just because you don't think an ad is effective doesn't mean it wasn't effective.
moron4hire 8y ago
Doesn't that assume that the targeting information gets used appropriately? My understanding is that advertisers bid on placement and the largest big gets the prize, regardless of whether or not they are using it "correctly". So it wouldn't matter if BMW wants to target people with new job promotions if, e.g., Rolex is outbidding them for "luxury". The vast majority of ads I see are of no relevance to me. It makes me assume that the companies that would have relevant products just aren't spending as much as broader interest stuff, bringing us right back to square one.
Rebelgecko 8y ago
A few (potential) ways targeted ads may not be advantageous: Often I see targeted ads for products I looked up and did some research on. I either bought the product or decided not to buy the product. Unless the ads convince me to buy another one or change my mind about whether or not I need a first one, they're not going to do any good. Targeted ads can also be creepy and offputting. It's weird to look something up and then see ads for that specific version of that specific product everywhere.
deleted 8y ago
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saynay 8y ago
Over-targetting creeps people out, so I sometimes wonder if Google (and others) intentionally slip in "bad" targeting to lower peoples guard.
Klonoar 8y ago
A nitpick, but Google stopped scanning emails for advertising back in like 2015. I see this still thrown around way too much...
jjtheblunt 8y ago
All your examples presume that the people targeted lack the initiative to seek what they want, no? One could argue that getting all the junkmail targeted ads out of one's face _delays_ actual transactions with retailers that would-be customers can adequately find themselves, with even greater information.
scythe 8y ago
>I would be absolutely astounded if targeted ads did not provide significant long-term advantage to a big player like Google. How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology) People know when they're being manipulated and we usually don't like it. All the data in the world won't help you if using it creates antipathy.
webkike 8y ago
Here’s a thought: targeted advertisements sell me crappier versions of things I’m likely to research, while non targeted ads actually aid in discoveribility of things I would not be already thinking of purchasing
lrem 8y ago
> Having said that, I'm constantly surprised by how bad Google is at targeted advertising. For example, today when I visit nytimes.com I see an ad from Google with the ad text in French. Hey Google, despite my recent visit to Paris I don't speak French - maybe your AI experts could analyse my 13 years of Gmail and search history to figure that out! No, they literally could not, because the data flow between Gmail and Ads has ben severed a while ago: https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in-the-enterprise-g-suites-gmail-and-consumer-gmail-to-more-closely-align/ https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in... These kind of things are treated pretty seriously. There are teams whose job is literally making sure that your data does not leak from one Google product to another in a way that would violate your privacy. Source: I'm an engineer in Google, but in none of the mentioned teams.
- propogandist 8y ago
  Gmail is the exception, as google can harvest all the data from other Google services. Virtually all google products are governed by a shared google privacy policy, which allows Google to combine data across products and services. This change was made years ago, despite some end user protest. Most apps and products are also optimized to maximize data harvesting - ex. Android OS and Maps will nag if users don't give up data. So I don't really believe what you're saying.
  - lrem 8y ago
    I can't even tell what you mean by "data harvesting" in general. But the fundamental error you're making here is considering "Google" as a single entity. Frankly, with that kind of thinking you can't win, because either Google, Apple or Microsoft has all your data. No need of harvesting, you have literally gave it all to them and asked to keep it for you. However, once you allow the idea that there are powerful people inside these companies, that genuinely don't want the company to create a panopticon, things can get interesting. I can't exactly prove that to you, but you've seen hints of that in the news over 2018. Or, you might have noticed e.g. that safe browsing only sends hashes of the URLs you type. Or, now this Gmail not telling Ads which languages you speak thing. Now, again I can't offer more than my word for it, but the Gmail-Ads situation is the rule, not the exception. The only reason this made it to the news, is that the exception in place before has been lifted. But in Google, by default, if a product wants data you shared with another product, it has to make a very strong case that that's covered by intent of a permission you already gave. That, or ask you for permission, or ask you for the data again. If you ever wondered why Google keeps asking for the same basic immutable data, that might be the reason. Funnily enough, this whole privacy thing is hard to tell from the outside. As you said, there is a single privacy policy, that governs the relationship between Google and yourself. All the internal data siloing is, well, internal. Edit: I won't be continuing this thread. The cognitive load to not leak anything non-public is a bit unpleasant.
hyperpallium 8y ago
> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? If the unknowns have a greater influence. So, a little knowledge makes google overconfident. Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.
oneplane 8y ago
The content of ads rarely matches with something I'm actually interested but uninformed in. The most wasteful ads are probably the ones about products I already bought, or the ones about products referring to a conversation partner or shared links to websites which hold interest to the sending party, not the receiving one. The ads are very targeted but not targeted at someone who would ever buy the advertised thing. If only one could 'scan' the product they just bought to no longer see any ads about it...
InclinedPlane 8y ago
Targeted ads are almost universally pretty terrible. My reaction to seeing a targeted ad usually falls into one of these categories: - I already bought that recently, why would I need another one? - I already decided which variety of thing you're showing me I will buy, this ad isn't helpful to me. - Why are you spying on me? That's creepy, I'm not going to click that ad even if it was exactly the thing I wanted to buy right now. I expect that this experience isn't extraordinarily unique. Having less targeted ads is actually somewhat helpful because it maintains the pretense that ad companies aren't spying on you constantly.
michaelmrose 8y ago
Advertising seems to be pretty bad at suggesting things that would be targeted at me.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Twitter is even worse - the adverts when travelling are almost entirely in the local language. I have used Twitter for a decade. They know where I live, and that I’ve never once indicated that I know Spanish or Japanese or whatever, yet somewhow their targeting setup seems to be “you are in Japan therefore here are Japanese adverts” which is fucking baffling for a company with that amount of engineering resource.
stubish 8y ago
Google is in general not selling stuff to people. It is selling ad space to companies. Targeted ads only provide advantage if these companies will pay more, or if companies will spend more of their advertising budget for targeted ads. I would be astounded if revenue dropped at all if Google stopped providing targeted ads, at least in the short term, because there is no serious competition. Longer term it may well be an advantage as you think, but I don't think it is a sure thing. Unless targeting gets an awful lot smarter, I think companies may choose to spend their dollars on cheaper, dumber services that provide the same conversion rates. Especially if privacy concerns and law changes enable a lot more people to drop out of the targeting.
skookumchuck 8y ago
I get amazon ads all the time, "based on your interest in X you might like Y". They've been wrong 100% of the time. Maybe I'm just weird.
majani 8y ago
The efficiency of targeted ads depends greatly on there being a sufficient number of ads and sophisticated buyers on the platform. If you only have one unsophisticated advertiser on Adsense, it's a high likelihood that Adsense will just end up showing that ad to its entire network and the targeting advantage is completely negated. This is the problem left to be solved in advertising and it's really hard to solve
wastedhours 8y ago
> Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? Really valuable - but is it best to be done when they're reading something completely irrelevant? If they're reading a piece on the latest political issue of the day, are they really in the mindset to explore that purchase?
lmm 8y ago
Google doesn't target ads themselves, they sell advertising targeting to the highest bidder. If someone's bidding high numbers for a French-language ad and not bothering to exclude non-French-speakers, Google is more than happy to take their money.

by MarkMc 8y ago

Nursie 8y ago

>Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? Perhaps the question is whether that turns to sales and engagement, or if people who don't click ads don't click ads regardless of content, and those that do, do.

maxxxxx 8y ago

Maybe the cost for effective targeted advertising is too high. You have to collect a ton of data and analyze it which costs a lot of money. Maybe untargeted are more cost effective.

rock_hard 8y ago

You be surprised how much less sophisticated Googles and Facebooks ad targeting is! We are far away from a machine classifying you as being single and going to the gym every day or liking BMW and having gotten a promotion. Not that I don’t think we couldn’t get there...but today these system are far away from it! Just go to your Facebook ad settings to understand how primitive the information is they have about you. But I agree that targeted ads (as primitive as they are) are more efficient then I untargeted ads

codq 8y ago
Perhaps there's some kind of Baader-Meinhof phenomena going on here. When a targeted ad is creepily accurate and on point, people flip and think that the machines have figured us out. But the ads that are irrelevant just fly by us without a hit. The one-out-of-a-hundred ads that get it right, likely due to an ad targeter's lucky strike, are the ones that get under our skin, and the only ones we really notice.
- adzicg 8y ago
  I read somewhere (can’t remember the book name unfortunately) that Tesco in the UK faced this problem when they started sending out personalised coupon booklets based on loyalty card purchases. People were freaking out. Then they started adding coupons to the booklet designed to be irrelevant - say if they figured out that someone was newly pregnant, they’d send a few pages of baby stuff, but also inject lawn mower coupons and stuff only men would care about. That achieved the whole targetted effect and avoided looking creepy for just a few pennies more.
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    I remember during college I was working at Tesco, and a customer way buying a lot of baby food, and she had received some Clubcard coupons for them. I asked her if she had grandchildren, she said no, but her husband really likes baby food.
    - dazc 8y ago
      A niche yet to be exploited?
  - dazc 8y ago
    You still get that if you shop online, everything you ever bought suggested as an add on to your basket. I can see how this could cause embarrassment and, maybe, awkward questions if one's partner also uses the same account.
  - tivert 8y ago

rusk 8y ago

My experience of targeted advertising is Amazon trying to sell me things I’ve already bought ...

distances 8y ago
And Booking pushing advertisements for the exact same hotel I've just checked on their service. I can't understand how that would seem like a good idea to anyone.
- pelario 8y ago
  I've thought the same (and heard the same booking "blunder"), until I visited a city I had visited before, and went for the exact same hotel...
  - TuringTest 8y ago
    Surely that would make sense the next time you visit the city, not for the same visit.
    - bdamm 8y ago
      There’s some marketing theory about brand reinforcement near a purchase creating a more likely customer later. I’m not a marketer though.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        The easiest way to get "brand reinforcement" is to deliver a good product. I will remember them. Right now it seems they want to get "brand reinforcement" through constant nagging which already causes me to dislike the brand.
  - dhimes 8y ago
    But did you need an ad to get you to do that? Seems like that's the one ad you don't need to see.

dredmorbius 8y ago

I've heard directly from Google ads eng that it does not.

YouKnowBetter 8y ago

> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? It allows you to sell more ads to the marketing people since it sounds very compelling. So there is your model. The fact that I am still shown ads for items of the complete opposite (football) team that I am clearly (online visible, on FB, in my gmails, from my google search history, from my chrome browsing habits) fan of; show the targeting is still... moderate to say the least.

tomjen3 8y ago
Google has probably put in you in the category interested in "sports", without giving it a second thought.

epanchin 8y ago

Why does Steve like the BMW 3 series? I contend it is due to untargeted ads.

jschwartzi 8y ago
Or because Steve regularly goes on business trips and has rented the 3 series in the past. That's basically why I want a Mazda 3, because I drove it for 2 weeks and it was fun.

retSava 8y ago

Perhaps that's what google want you to believe, much like how Target scared people off with their targeted (heh) marketing that outed, among things, that a teenager was pregnant due to the things she started buying. After those events, they started inserting random ads to give a plausible chance that the very-targeted ads were random. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#50705a1e6668 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

tomjen3 8y ago

You and I might, a prior, believe that they would be much more valuable, but after 10 years and with some of the sharpest minds in the world working on the problem, facebook has never once shown me an ad for something I wanted. I have as far as a recall only twice clicked on ad on google with intent to acquire the item (as opposed to just clicking on the ad rather than go to the homepage of a company). If you could actually create ads for things that I would want, personalized ads are probably worth more. I just don't think it is possible with current technology.

ehnto 8y ago
Sometimes it would pick up on keywords in my messages, but I rarely talk about things I wanted to buy. I'm a very satirical individual so if I mention a product it's most likely because I'm making fun of it. Making the advertisements extra ineffective.

Mirioron 8y ago

It's not Google that's bad at this, but the people buying the ads and selecting the targets. And if targeted ads wasn't a thing then a large portion of your ads would be in a different language.

throw0u1t 8y ago

Does Steve need an ad to remind him that he likes the BMW 3 series? No doubt one of the first steps he took after his promotion was look up the prices, or finance offers on BMW 3 series, perhaps create a spec and then talk to his partner about it if he has o e. The thing is if there is something I want to buy, or own at some point in my life, I don't tend to forget about it or need some reminder from a targeted ad. If it's something I really want I'll usually think about it daily. On the other hand, there could be something that I need, and have never searched for, that I have forgotten about such as going out and buying more toilet roll.

tomassre 8y ago
I don't think the purpose is to remind him in the BMW case but to get him to purchase it at dealer X instead of dealer Y. They would be the ones making the ad, targeting someone X miles from them, who is interested in BMW's.
character0 8y ago
Perhaps he could be reminded. Car just won an award, which would direct him to look up more info about the car and why it's considered good. Maybe they just made an update to the car model he likes, but is not aware of this change.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  Maybe that'll give him a slight nudge toward buying the thing he was already going to buy, but how valuable is that nudge? BMW has a lot more to gain by providing that info to someone who isn't already into their cars.
  - lmm 8y ago
    You don't make these decisions in one go. One ad doesn't make someone who isn't into cars go out and buy a BMW. The money is in tipping someone who's been thinking about getting a BMW for a while over the edge.

mtgx 8y ago

Then you should try buying some Google Display ads sometime. See how quickly Google wastes your money, because the tools it provides are nowhere close to the targeting you may have in mind. The audiences you'll get to target even after a lot of manual fine-tuning will still feel too generic. But they'll also still be expensive because everyone else also thinks the data is super-targeted so they throw a lot of money at it, increasing bids.

duxup 8y ago

It does make sense the way you describe it. But the ads I see are way off target. Hell Google's news ... AI or whatever they're doing has been absolutely convinced I'm a Nebraska Cornhuskers fan, probabbly because my team plays them and I google something about them once in a while.... but in the past even when I told Google directly "I don't want to see stories about Nebraska Cornhuskers" ... after a while it again becomes convinced I'm a huge Cornhuskers fan. I'm just not sure these systems are ... that effective. Not to say it is easy, the systems have to be really complex / interesting.

taurath 8y ago
I can’t help but think the only thing most people buying ads go for is demographics (age gender race income) rather than more personal interest targeting, since that’s been the primary driver of TV ads for the past many decades. Interest targeting seems like it doesn’t work, or if it does the interest based ad buys are few and far between.
- duxup 8y ago
  That's an interesting point. I wonder if ultra granularity ... isn't really the current state... At one point it was sure that I was female (am not, have never been) too.... to their credit they figured it out after a year or so, but man the ads. But that was at least a limited run of confusion.
piquadrat 8y ago
Google News for the longest time kept showing me updates for the Fremantle Dockers, an Australian football team (I'm Swiss, and never set foot on Australian soil). I wonder why...
- duxup 8y ago
  Yeah I've gotten some ultra disconnected bits too. I'm really curious how those happen.
  - 8y ago

lucideer 8y ago

I think this is just it though. Everyone assumes targeted advertising works, because it seems self-evident that it should. And the only people likely to have significant data on whether it works have a vested interest in convincing everyone that it does work (regardless of whether that's true or not). It may be that targeted ads are more effective, but some counters to your points: > John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. A wedding anniversary is a significant thing–some John's may be swayed by an advertisement, but many would consider it a bit of a cheat not to put more "novel" thought into it. > Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Frankly, the former of those two data-points could mean anything. Much of what advertisers believe about consumer habits of single people could easily be correlation. As for the latter, anyone with a daily gym routine is less likely to want to change it. Selling gym membership to someone speculatively hoping to start going to the gym is a better bet, but much harder to track. > Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Going back to the anniversary gift—I seriously doubt many people are much swayed by one-off ads in buying something as significant as a car (unless Steve has 10+ cars, in which case the promotion is less relevant). This is case where untargeted ads definitely have a much bigger role (Steve sees many BMW ads passively over a number of years). It may be there's some cases were targeted ads are extremely effective, and some where they're not. And—as you've pointed out—it may be that Google et al. aren't really incentivised to actually be good at targeting as long as their advertisers believe they're good at targeting (which goes hand in hand with market dominance).

soared 8y ago
You grossly misunderstand digital advertising or your bias has completed clouded your logic. > A wedding anniversary is a significant thing–some John's may be swayed by an advertisement, but many would consider it a bit of a cheat not to put more "novel" thought into it. No idea what you mean here by cheating or novel thought. We're talking about whether knowing that info allows you to have more successful advertising compared to random chance. Serving John ads for roses, chocolates, and vacations will be more effective than serving those ads to a random person. >Frankly, the former of those two data-points could mean anything. Much of what advertisers believe about consumer habits of single people could easily be correlation. Correlation is the whole point. If someone who is single and goes to the gym is correlated to certain purchases or behavior, you can advertise those. And being single, a woman, and a gym-goer isn't super valuable by itself but combined together you can advertiser women's athletic clothing that is functional but also attractive. > As for the latter, anyone with a daily gym routine is less likely to want to change it. Selling gym membership to someone speculatively hoping to start going to the gym is a better bet, but much harder to track. Again, you don't understand advertising. If I know someone goes to the gym every day I'm not going to advertise gyms to them. I'm going to advertise water bottles, protein, healthy meal kits, athletic clothing, etc. > Going back to the anniversary gift—I seriously doubt many people are much swayed by one-off ads in buying something as significant as a car We're not selling Steve a car with targeted ads. We're taking his promotion and propensity towards bmw to assume hes wealthy and likes luxury goods. You advertise more expensive goods to him, rather than cheap ones.

tivert 8y ago

> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? I think there are a few factors: 1. Targeted ads are more likely to show people things they're already familiar with. The ads are more "expected" so there's less novelty. Untargeted ads can inadvertently hit wants and needs that aren't part of the user's tracking profile. Closely related to that: targeted ads can induce their own special kind of fatigue. If all you see are diet ads because your profile says you want to lose weight, you're going to get really sick of seeing diet ads. The targeting actually works against effectiveness. 2. Targeted ads are much more exploitable by scammers. See: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-strange-brands-in-your-instagram-feed/550136/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-s.... This leads to a greater erosion of trust. The expense of traditional and untargeted advertising weeds out such scams. 3. Building a good user profile is hard. If you get it right, you have the problems I described in #1. If you get it wrong, you're blasting someone with ads that are completely off the mark (like weight loss ads for a very healthy and fit person). 4. If a user sees one targeted ad a week, that ad is likely to punch above its weight. If they see 50 targeted ads every day, the effect is much different. They're more likely to develop negative emotional reactions to the ads, as they gain awareness and get creeped out by the tracking and attempted manipulation.

tokyodude 8y ago

You're probably right but ... I don't have any data on my own actually behavior, only my feelings. If I search for "React" on Google and ads for react based services or other software services appear it doesn't bother me. If I'm on stackoverflow or jsfiddle and there are ads for software dev related products and services great! If I'm on Polygon and see ads for games, perfect! It's when I see targeted ads unrelated to the activity that I feel angry, annoyed, upset. For example I viewed some apartments on an apartment site. Then I went and checked movie reviews on yahoo (japan) and every ad was for that exact apartment I looked at. It's not just creepy it's anger inducing. I'm not interesting in looking at apartments. I'm looking at movies. It's like the sales person from the last store I visited followed me into the movie theater and is badgering me to buy the clothing I looked at So, I'd basically like to believe there's 3 tiers 1. 100% un-targeted, random ads 2. Content targeted. Video game ads on a video game site. Or BMW ads on an article about BMWs 3. User targeted. Being tracked all over the net to try to divine what I want and showing me ads for that. It's easy to believe 2 and 3 are better than 1. I want to believe 2 is as good as 3, maybe better since it's not creepy.

Angostura 8y ago

Except that more typically, if I buy a pair of shoes I am then followed around by footwear ads for the next month.

StreamBright 8y ago
Or you talk about shoes... :)

StreamBright 8y ago

Now removing the names: >>> User1 has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. User2 is single and goes to the gym every day. User3 just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. User4 is overweight but has just gone on a diet. There, no identities and you can still advertise. Is it hard?

sigi45 8y ago

My biggest issue is, i can't remember when i clicked on a ad and was not closing that tab asap. It would be really nice to see those people buying to understand it more. Amazon for example still shows me washing machines after i purchased one through amazon. But that feature is still here on a high traffic user landing page! Perhaps it matters for products which are clearly build for a very specific target (like a startup selling a shopping service to 30 year olds which work all the time) but there might also be a lot of standard products which everyone would buy? Dog food, dog toys etc. Also i often enough see companies paying (at least those are ads) for there own name. When you enter 'Miele' (well known german company for washing machines and other stuff). You get an ad for miele.de but miele.de is already the first hit. The same when googling 'Samsung S9'.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? It's possible that some combination of efficient markets, semi-inaccurate/incomplete tracking data and chaos theory combines to make it mostly irrelevant. So Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series, but advertising to him is useless because he has already decided to buy a BMW 3 series. Whereas Larry has had the same job for ten years, and the same Ford for ten years, but if you put a luxury car ad in front of him it may get him to take a test drive and actually create a new customer. The data says Mary is single and goes to the gym every day, but it only thinks she's "single" because she's in a committed long-distance relationship and isn't interested in dating anyone else. And she's a fitness expert who is willing to spend her time researching fitness products, so she already knows everything there is to know about those products, already buys the ones she wants, and advertising them to her isn't going to create any new exposure. Whereas Jane never goes to the gym, so you might actually sell her a gym membership or a piece of fitness equipment because she doesn't already have one or know anything about it yet. John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up, but he has also known exactly what he's going to do for years. Whereas he has a third cousin whose wedding is coming up and has no idea what to get, so you should be showing him ads for toasters and flatware rather than jewelry and chocolate. In general, you may do better to advertise your stuff to the people who aren't already interested in and knowledgeable about it. Which actually looks kind of a lot like random scattershot rather than targeting.

kuwze 8y ago
The real issue imho is that there is no shared sales information. So you advertise BMWs to people who may have already purchased a car. I think that is a bigger issue.
- krisroadruck 8y ago
  This happened to me both times I've purchased a Jeep. I did a bunch of research on models and packages, price shopped a few dealers in my area, and then purchased a vehicle all over the course of a Saturday. For the next 3 months I get jeep ads following me all around the internet. I wonder how much revenue those completely irrelevant ads generated for google.

JAlexoid 8y ago

You're listing interests... Using that just reminds people of their desires. John has a 10y anniversary - will make John focused in buying stuff, he'll need exposure to new products... Not ads for stuff that he already looked at. John is probably not an amnesiac. Mary is single and likes gym - doesn't make her more interested in gym clothes, she's already well aware of the gym clothes... Steve getting a promo bundled with him liking BMW will be a total waste of a ad target. He already knows the cars and will buy a BMW with or without an ad from any car manufacturer. Going on a diet implies that you know what diet you're going on. In short retargeting is great at reminding people of what they like. It's really not great at acquiring new customers. I worked on this stuff and it's flashy, but ultimately just a great way to siphon off marketing budgets out of corporations. Don't sell your stock just yet. The product is useless, but it's a scam that is as prevalent as organized religion

DeusExMachina 8y ago

I think it also depends on the quality of the targeting. We tend to think that these companies know us very well, but (anecdotally) that's not my experience on Facebook. There is a page where you can see a list of things Facebook thinks you like. In my case, it's full of things I don't care about and I would never buy. They are there because, according to that page, I clicked on some ad at some point. Which I don't remember, so it might well be five years ago. So I get targeted by ads I am not interested in at all. A random ad has more chances to capture my attention than something targeted on a non-interest.

polskibus 8y ago

Maybe it's the willingness to click a random ad from a curated set that I haven't seen before instead of clicking on things that have been forecasted as interesting to me, but I already know about them?

j-c-hewitt 8y ago

It's not necessarily Google but the advertisers using the platform and how the ad is configured. Google itself addresses these kinds of ambiguities all the time but if the user puts coarse configuration on it, then it will do what the user told it to do like show French ads to non-French speakers who just visited the country.

specialist 8y ago

I've worked on recommenders for a big brick & mortar with significant e-commerce. Our team's recommender algorithms were marginally effective. Despite having significant data on our customers. The new new thing is "personalization". We'll see if that helps. If I had to guess, broadcast and individual targeting both (can) work, but the middle ground is fool's gold. IMHO, I'd like to see renewed emphasis on improving search, browse, foraging. I generally know what I want, but still struggle to find it.

baxtr 8y ago

I am in my mid-30s and I have never ever bought anything that was advertised to me. Ever. I couldn't even say why. Sure, I click on the first links in the google SERP, but just because I am lazy ass.

darkerside 8y ago

Well, you remember that French advertisement, don't you? Just because you don't think an ad is effective doesn't mean it wasn't effective.

moron4hire 8y ago

Doesn't that assume that the targeting information gets used appropriately? My understanding is that advertisers bid on placement and the largest big gets the prize, regardless of whether or not they are using it "correctly". So it wouldn't matter if BMW wants to target people with new job promotions if, e.g., Rolex is outbidding them for "luxury". The vast majority of ads I see are of no relevance to me. It makes me assume that the companies that would have relevant products just aren't spending as much as broader interest stuff, bringing us right back to square one.

Rebelgecko 8y ago

A few (potential) ways targeted ads may not be advantageous: Often I see targeted ads for products I looked up and did some research on. I either bought the product or decided not to buy the product. Unless the ads convince me to buy another one or change my mind about whether or not I need a first one, they're not going to do any good. Targeted ads can also be creepy and offputting. It's weird to look something up and then see ads for that specific version of that specific product everywhere.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

saynay 8y ago

Over-targetting creeps people out, so I sometimes wonder if Google (and others) intentionally slip in "bad" targeting to lower peoples guard.

Klonoar 8y ago

A nitpick, but Google stopped scanning emails for advertising back in like 2015. I see this still thrown around way too much...

jjtheblunt 8y ago

All your examples presume that the people targeted lack the initiative to seek what they want, no? One could argue that getting all the junkmail targeted ads out of one's face _delays_ actual transactions with retailers that would-be customers can adequately find themselves, with even greater information.

scythe 8y ago

>I would be absolutely astounded if targeted ads did not provide significant long-term advantage to a big player like Google. How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology) People know when they're being manipulated and we usually don't like it. All the data in the world won't help you if using it creates antipathy.

webkike 8y ago

Here’s a thought: targeted advertisements sell me crappier versions of things I’m likely to research, while non targeted ads actually aid in discoveribility of things I would not be already thinking of purchasing

lrem 8y ago

> Having said that, I'm constantly surprised by how bad Google is at targeted advertising. For example, today when I visit nytimes.com I see an ad from Google with the ad text in French. Hey Google, despite my recent visit to Paris I don't speak French - maybe your AI experts could analyse my 13 years of Gmail and search history to figure that out! No, they literally could not, because the data flow between Gmail and Ads has ben severed a while ago: https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in-the-enterprise-g-suites-gmail-and-consumer-gmail-to-more-closely-align/ https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in... These kind of things are treated pretty seriously. There are teams whose job is literally making sure that your data does not leak from one Google product to another in a way that would violate your privacy. Source: I'm an engineer in Google, but in none of the mentioned teams.

propogandist 8y ago
Gmail is the exception, as google can harvest all the data from other Google services. Virtually all google products are governed by a shared google privacy policy, which allows Google to combine data across products and services. This change was made years ago, despite some end user protest. Most apps and products are also optimized to maximize data harvesting - ex. Android OS and Maps will nag if users don't give up data. So I don't really believe what you're saying.
- lrem 8y ago
  I can't even tell what you mean by "data harvesting" in general. But the fundamental error you're making here is considering "Google" as a single entity. Frankly, with that kind of thinking you can't win, because either Google, Apple or Microsoft has all your data. No need of harvesting, you have literally gave it all to them and asked to keep it for you. However, once you allow the idea that there are powerful people inside these companies, that genuinely don't want the company to create a panopticon, things can get interesting. I can't exactly prove that to you, but you've seen hints of that in the news over 2018. Or, you might have noticed e.g. that safe browsing only sends hashes of the URLs you type. Or, now this Gmail not telling Ads which languages you speak thing. Now, again I can't offer more than my word for it, but the Gmail-Ads situation is the rule, not the exception. The only reason this made it to the news, is that the exception in place before has been lifted. But in Google, by default, if a product wants data you shared with another product, it has to make a very strong case that that's covered by intent of a permission you already gave. That, or ask you for permission, or ask you for the data again. If you ever wondered why Google keeps asking for the same basic immutable data, that might be the reason. Funnily enough, this whole privacy thing is hard to tell from the outside. As you said, there is a single privacy policy, that governs the relationship between Google and yourself. All the internal data siloing is, well, internal. Edit: I won't be continuing this thread. The cognitive load to not leak anything non-public is a bit unpleasant.

hyperpallium 8y ago

> How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? If the unknowns have a greater influence. So, a little knowledge makes google overconfident. Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.

oneplane 8y ago

The content of ads rarely matches with something I'm actually interested but uninformed in. The most wasteful ads are probably the ones about products I already bought, or the ones about products referring to a conversation partner or shared links to websites which hold interest to the sending party, not the receiving one. The ads are very targeted but not targeted at someone who would ever buy the advertised thing. If only one could 'scan' the product they just bought to no longer see any ads about it...

InclinedPlane 8y ago

Targeted ads are almost universally pretty terrible. My reaction to seeing a targeted ad usually falls into one of these categories: - I already bought that recently, why would I need another one? - I already decided which variety of thing you're showing me I will buy, this ad isn't helpful to me. - Why are you spying on me? That's creepy, I'm not going to click that ad even if it was exactly the thing I wanted to buy right now. I expect that this experience isn't extraordinarily unique. Having less targeted ads is actually somewhat helpful because it maintains the pretense that ad companies aren't spying on you constantly.

michaelmrose 8y ago

Advertising seems to be pretty bad at suggesting things that would be targeted at me.

matthewmacleod 8y ago

Twitter is even worse - the adverts when travelling are almost entirely in the local language. I have used Twitter for a decade. They know where I live, and that I’ve never once indicated that I know Spanish or Japanese or whatever, yet somewhow their targeting setup seems to be “you are in Japan therefore here are Japanese adverts” which is fucking baffling for a company with that amount of engineering resource.

stubish 8y ago

Google is in general not selling stuff to people. It is selling ad space to companies. Targeted ads only provide advantage if these companies will pay more, or if companies will spend more of their advertising budget for targeted ads. I would be astounded if revenue dropped at all if Google stopped providing targeted ads, at least in the short term, because there is no serious competition. Longer term it may well be an advantage as you think, but I don't think it is a sure thing. Unless targeting gets an awful lot smarter, I think companies may choose to spend their dollars on cheaper, dumber services that provide the same conversion rates. Especially if privacy concerns and law changes enable a lot more people to drop out of the targeting.

skookumchuck 8y ago

I get amazon ads all the time, "based on your interest in X you might like Y". They've been wrong 100% of the time. Maybe I'm just weird.

majani 8y ago

The efficiency of targeted ads depends greatly on there being a sufficient number of ads and sophisticated buyers on the platform. If you only have one unsophisticated advertiser on Adsense, it's a high likelihood that Adsense will just end up showing that ad to its entire network and the targeting advantage is completely negated. This is the problem left to be solved in advertising and it's really hard to solve

wastedhours 8y ago

> Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? Really valuable - but is it best to be done when they're reading something completely irrelevant? If they're reading a piece on the latest political issue of the day, are they really in the mindset to explore that purchase?

lmm 8y ago

Google doesn't target ads themselves, they sell advertising targeting to the highest bidder. If someone's bidding high numbers for a French-language ad and not bothering to exclude non-French-speakers, Google is more than happy to take their money.