3 ms·

Author here. I wish I'd thought of your example before I wrote the article :D And I think my opinion on that is probably obvious, but I think the simplest ans

Author here. I wish I'd thought of your example before I wrote the article :D And I think my opinion on that is probably obvious, but I think the simplest answer is that Google simply doesn't care about mistargeting ads to a consumer who wouldn't conceivably click on them. They gain no benefit from reducing an advertisers spend that way.

criddell 7y ago
The cars example is also not great because cars are one of those things that are advertised to everybody. Beer, laundry detergent, insurance, and movies are other examples like that. Basically, the kind of ads you see during a Sunday afternoon football game.
dano 7y ago
Another aspect of the Thai example is that the target is over constrained. The user is from the US, knows English, doesn't know Thai, is temporary located in Thailand, age 30 to 35, likes country music, and of ethnic decent (just example data). Advertisers can't really customize their offer to that overly constrained individual and the algorithm falls through to the remnant ad inventory. On the sell side, such a constrained target is a small market and not worth the effort to buy placement. If one runs unlock orig or pi-hole regularly, ads you do get out of home on your phone will start to be less targeted to you. To the larger point of pull vs. push, I would embrace such a market place. Google shopping sort of does this. Good article. Thank you.
- cattlefarmer 7y ago
  There's also the little problem where when your eyeballs are up for auction, the ones putting in bids don't have any relevant inventory targeting you so all the network can do nothing is default to whatever fallback ads they have, which are usually low cost brand building ones. That's where all the almost-porn and dating ones pop up because they're desperate for eyeballs of any kind.

3 ms·

Author here. I wish I'd thought of your example before I wrote the article :D And I think my opinion on that is probably obvious, but I think the simplest ans

by tomlockwood 7y ago

criddell 7y ago
The cars example is also not great because cars are one of those things that are advertised to everybody. Beer, laundry detergent, insurance, and movies are other examples like that. Basically, the kind of ads you see during a Sunday afternoon football game.
dano 7y ago
Another aspect of the Thai example is that the target is over constrained. The user is from the US, knows English, doesn't know Thai, is temporary located in Thailand, age 30 to 35, likes country music, and of ethnic decent (just example data). Advertisers can't really customize their offer to that overly constrained individual and the algorithm falls through to the remnant ad inventory. On the sell side, such a constrained target is a small market and not worth the effort to buy placement. If one runs unlock orig or pi-hole regularly, ads you do get out of home on your phone will start to be less targeted to you. To the larger point of pull vs. push, I would embrace such a market place. Google shopping sort of does this. Good article. Thank you.
- cattlefarmer 7y ago
  There's also the little problem where when your eyeballs are up for auction, the ones putting in bids don't have any relevant inventory targeting you so all the network can do nothing is default to whatever fallback ads they have, which are usually low cost brand building ones. That's where all the almost-porn and dating ones pop up because they're desperate for eyeballs of any kind.