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I wonder how much of this is a scam on the advertisers too, sure the platform might have great detail for targeting ads, but if someone comes along and outbids

I wonder how much of this is a scam on the advertisers too, sure the platform might have great detail for targeting ads, but if someone comes along and outbids on generic terms it isn’t going to do you much good as an advertiser either.

nerdponx 7y ago
Judging from some of the comments I've seen here, quite a lot.
- mattkevan 7y ago
  I used to lead the product team for a publisher that makes the majority of its income from ads. It was a constant fight between the commercial teams and us. Commercial wanted to stuff every page with as many ads and trackers as possible. We wanted to ensure the user didn’t have a miserable experience. As the company liked getting money, we, and the user, generally lost. I kept an instance of Chrome blocker-free to see the site in all its ad-stuffed glory, but after learning a bit about how things work, I block all the things with extreme prejudice for personal browsing. And ensure friends & family do too.
DailyHN 7y ago
Using Google retargeting ads, less than 5% of desktop traffic goes on to click anywhere on my website. And it's worse for mobile than on desktops. Source: I setup Google Analytics event tracking to trigger on every page click. Edit: change 10% to 5%. And it's actually only 2.5% over the past 14 days. Edit2: and that was from ~200 clicks over 14 days.
- majewsky 7y ago
  > I setup Google Analytics event tracking to trigger on every page click. Thank you, I now feel as good as I'll ever feel about using uBO.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    I think tracking page clicks is completely different to invasive data profiling. Anything that could theoretically be tracked server-side (like a link click) is fair game. The only reason it's done client side is easy implementation.
  - DailyHN 7y ago
    As someone who never uses any blockers, what's the benefit to you? I imagine you have some role in building the internet since you're on HN. As far as I'm aware, by not blocking ads I am experiencing the internet that the majority of people also experience. And I think that's how I can better understand the people I build things for. Maybe if more tech workers took off their tin-foil ad-blocking hats then the ad industry, and the whole internet, would be better off. Edit: I wonder how many developers that work for ad companies also use ad blockers. Probably a lot?
    - geggam 7y ago
      I used to work for an ad company, ad blockers really dont stop the tracking. They just make the internet usable :)
      - DailyHN 7y ago
        Can you better explain this usability? When a site is littered with ads, the content probably sucks, too. Could the ads make the internet more usable? For example, they help evaluate the content before reading it and leading one to find better quality content sooner.
        geggam 7y ago
        Every time I use a browser without noscript and ublock origin I feel inundated with all sorts of marketing material. Its distracting. I used to simply switch to a CLI browser to google for things but these days its hit or miss as javascript is so heavily used. Videos... auto run videos need to be abolished as well.
    - 7y ago

nerdponx 7y ago

Judging from some of the comments I've seen here, quite a lot.

mattkevan 7y ago
I used to lead the product team for a publisher that makes the majority of its income from ads. It was a constant fight between the commercial teams and us. Commercial wanted to stuff every page with as many ads and trackers as possible. We wanted to ensure the user didn’t have a miserable experience. As the company liked getting money, we, and the user, generally lost. I kept an instance of Chrome blocker-free to see the site in all its ad-stuffed glory, but after learning a bit about how things work, I block all the things with extreme prejudice for personal browsing. And ensure friends & family do too.

DailyHN 7y ago

Using Google retargeting ads, less than 5% of desktop traffic goes on to click anywhere on my website. And it's worse for mobile than on desktops. Source: I setup Google Analytics event tracking to trigger on every page click. Edit: change 10% to 5%. And it's actually only 2.5% over the past 14 days. Edit2: and that was from ~200 clicks over 14 days.

majewsky 7y ago
> I setup Google Analytics event tracking to trigger on every page click. Thank you, I now feel as good as I'll ever feel about using uBO.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  I think tracking page clicks is completely different to invasive data profiling. Anything that could theoretically be tracked server-side (like a link click) is fair game. The only reason it's done client side is easy implementation.
- DailyHN 7y ago
  As someone who never uses any blockers, what's the benefit to you? I imagine you have some role in building the internet since you're on HN. As far as I'm aware, by not blocking ads I am experiencing the internet that the majority of people also experience. And I think that's how I can better understand the people I build things for. Maybe if more tech workers took off their tin-foil ad-blocking hats then the ad industry, and the whole internet, would be better off. Edit: I wonder how many developers that work for ad companies also use ad blockers. Probably a lot?
  - geggam 7y ago
    I used to work for an ad company, ad blockers really dont stop the tracking. They just make the internet usable :)
    - DailyHN 7y ago
      Can you better explain this usability? When a site is littered with ads, the content probably sucks, too. Could the ads make the internet more usable? For example, they help evaluate the content before reading it and leading one to find better quality content sooner.
      - geggam 7y ago
        Every time I use a browser without noscript and ublock origin I feel inundated with all sorts of marketing material. Its distracting. I used to simply switch to a CLI browser to google for things but these days its hit or miss as javascript is so heavily used. Videos... auto run videos need to be abolished as well.
  - 7y ago