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What this ignores is that non targeted advertising means less money for publishers. As advertisers are willing to spend more when they have more info about a u

What this ignores is that non targeted advertising means less money for publishers. As advertisers are willing to spend more when they have more info about a user. According to a Google study [1] the impact can be as high as 50%. I prefer targeted advertising that's relevant to me. Especially because the advertiser doesn't actually know anything about me as an individual, I'm just an id, one of billions. [1] https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/disabling_third-party_cookies_publisher_revenue.pdf https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/disabling_third-pa...

MereInterest 7y ago
Why does it matter whether it is the advertiser themselves who know about me? The wrong is that I am being stalked in the first place. Why does it matter that advertisers pay more for targeted advertising? The wrong is that it is an option for them to choose in the first place.
- olegious 7y ago
  "Wrong" in your opinion, not in the opinion of others. Choice is a beautiful thing- that's why with things like GDPR you can opt out from tracking, personalized advertising and be worth less as a user to the publisher. Ad tech needs to do a better job in making these choices easier to make and persist. edit- as the commenter below correctly states, GDPR is "Opt-in" not "Opt-out"
  - gpderetta 7y ago
    No GPDR allows for opting-in into tracking. Of course most websites conveniently seem to forget that.
    - olegious 7y ago
      You're right, I don't live in the EU and forgot the distinction. But the point stands- users should get a choice, there shouldn't be a blanket ban.
- vinniejames 7y ago
  Because you'll end up seeing more ads, as publishers will show more irrelevant ads to make up for revenue lost due to lack of targeting
- missedthecue 7y ago
  You'll see twice as many ads, and most will be irrelevant to your interests. It's better to see half as many and have them be able to pique your interest. The publisher wins, the advertiser wins, and the consumer wins.
  - amelius 7y ago
    In the end the consumer pays, because someone has to pay the bill for those ads.
  - papermachete 7y ago
    I'll see no ads because I run several different ad blockers, as should everyone else.
xkcd-sucks 7y ago
Isn't the choice of publisher itself a form of ad targeting? E.g. many advertisers probably believe readers of "The Atlantic" and "Guns and Ammo" segment into two distinct populations. And publishers themselves certainly target media to specific segments, e.g. fashion magazines for young middle-class women versus middle-aged gay rich men have different content
- olegious 7y ago
  Context (which is basically what you're referring to) is just one strategy. Often, targeting is used to narrow in on an audience. Let's say I have a product to sell but I don't know my exact audience- I'd start a very broadly targeted campaign then see which types of people are responding to the ad. I would then narrow my targeting based on response. The broad targeting can lead to insights that I wouldn't have received if I had targeted a specific publisher.
Brian_K_White 7y ago
You prefer to be manipulated. I do not.
- olegious 7y ago
  You and I are different. We shouldn't prescribe blanket solutions to nuanced problems.
12xo 7y ago
Think of TV and other traditional media. The content is created to attract people which are turn sold to advertisers as a commodity. If you're looking at specific content, you are being targeted, by the content and any appropriated ads depending on who is buying at the time. All without individual tracking and targeting. Seeing an ad for something like a keyboard on a site about cooking is wasteful in so many ways. Mostly due to the inherit waste/loss in the ad stack and market. Too many middlemen taking too many %s of the pie to add what is in essence, a small lift in performance for the advertiser. Who really has no choice but to spend more if they want to increase their goals. The problem is that the internet became about gaming a false metric to make money. Success was measured by metrics like Impressions... The entire market is very wasteful and exists without a proper market forces to balance the costs. Facebook, Google make up their pricing. There is no transparency in the demand, they just choose a price, take a large % of the value, (or all) and have no incentive to change course. Most people better receive random, contextual driven ads than specific targeted ones. They interact with something similar to the content rather than to their specific browsing history. The thing that FB figured out, was they could combine content into ads and also sell ads against that content. Taking hold of the whole enchilada.
- olegious 7y ago
  I think you're missing a few key points: 1) "Success was measured by metrics like Impressions" - advertisers need to get smarter and link advertising to bottom line results. If you can't tie ad spend to improvement in sales, then why are you spending money? 2) "The entire market is wasteful and exists without proper market forces" - the entire point of programmatic advertising is each impression is sold in an auction, so it can be a very efficient way to buy advertising. The problem is when there are too many middle men between the advertiser and the audience taking a cut, this is why "supply path optimization" is becoming a big thing in the industry by helping you answer "how can I get to my audience with the fewest people in the middle?" 3)TV and traditional media wasn't necessarily the most efficient way to advertise, the "spray and pray" approach. Advertisers and TV networks are beginning to realize this, that's why a more and more of the ads you're watching on TV are actually placed there via programmatic advertising and the percentage is only rising.
ujki1 7y ago
An another study [1] suggest that the effect could be rather small. > We find that when a user’s cookie is available publisher’s revenue increases by only about 4%. This corresponds to an average increase of $0.00008per advertisement. Although I didn't fully read either studies so I'm not sure if they are really about the same thing. [1] https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/05/WEIS_2019_paper_38.pdf https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/...
erentz 7y ago
Does targeted vs non targeted really have an impact on sales? And if targeted was gone everywhere would it really cause a drop in revenue? It seems (from the little I’ve seen over the years) that targeting doesn’t have much impact. And that advertising budgets are pretty fixed as a percentage so revenues wouldn’t go down if everyone had to stop targeting.

MereInterest 7y ago

Why does it matter whether it is the advertiser themselves who know about me? The wrong is that I am being stalked in the first place. Why does it matter that advertisers pay more for targeted advertising? The wrong is that it is an option for them to choose in the first place.

olegious 7y ago
"Wrong" in your opinion, not in the opinion of others. Choice is a beautiful thing- that's why with things like GDPR you can opt out from tracking, personalized advertising and be worth less as a user to the publisher. Ad tech needs to do a better job in making these choices easier to make and persist. edit- as the commenter below correctly states, GDPR is "Opt-in" not "Opt-out"
- gpderetta 7y ago
  No GPDR allows for opting-in into tracking. Of course most websites conveniently seem to forget that.
  - olegious 7y ago
    You're right, I don't live in the EU and forgot the distinction. But the point stands- users should get a choice, there shouldn't be a blanket ban.
vinniejames 7y ago
Because you'll end up seeing more ads, as publishers will show more irrelevant ads to make up for revenue lost due to lack of targeting
missedthecue 7y ago
You'll see twice as many ads, and most will be irrelevant to your interests. It's better to see half as many and have them be able to pique your interest. The publisher wins, the advertiser wins, and the consumer wins.
- amelius 7y ago
  In the end the consumer pays, because someone has to pay the bill for those ads.
- papermachete 7y ago
  I'll see no ads because I run several different ad blockers, as should everyone else.

xkcd-sucks 7y ago

Isn't the choice of publisher itself a form of ad targeting? E.g. many advertisers probably believe readers of "The Atlantic" and "Guns and Ammo" segment into two distinct populations. And publishers themselves certainly target media to specific segments, e.g. fashion magazines for young middle-class women versus middle-aged gay rich men have different content

olegious 7y ago
Context (which is basically what you're referring to) is just one strategy. Often, targeting is used to narrow in on an audience. Let's say I have a product to sell but I don't know my exact audience- I'd start a very broadly targeted campaign then see which types of people are responding to the ad. I would then narrow my targeting based on response. The broad targeting can lead to insights that I wouldn't have received if I had targeted a specific publisher.

Brian_K_White 7y ago

You prefer to be manipulated. I do not.

olegious 7y ago
You and I are different. We shouldn't prescribe blanket solutions to nuanced problems.

12xo 7y ago

Think of TV and other traditional media. The content is created to attract people which are turn sold to advertisers as a commodity. If you're looking at specific content, you are being targeted, by the content and any appropriated ads depending on who is buying at the time. All without individual tracking and targeting. Seeing an ad for something like a keyboard on a site about cooking is wasteful in so many ways. Mostly due to the inherit waste/loss in the ad stack and market. Too many middlemen taking too many %s of the pie to add what is in essence, a small lift in performance for the advertiser. Who really has no choice but to spend more if they want to increase their goals. The problem is that the internet became about gaming a false metric to make money. Success was measured by metrics like Impressions... The entire market is very wasteful and exists without a proper market forces to balance the costs. Facebook, Google make up their pricing. There is no transparency in the demand, they just choose a price, take a large % of the value, (or all) and have no incentive to change course. Most people better receive random, contextual driven ads than specific targeted ones. They interact with something similar to the content rather than to their specific browsing history. The thing that FB figured out, was they could combine content into ads and also sell ads against that content. Taking hold of the whole enchilada.

olegious 7y ago
I think you're missing a few key points: 1) "Success was measured by metrics like Impressions" - advertisers need to get smarter and link advertising to bottom line results. If you can't tie ad spend to improvement in sales, then why are you spending money? 2) "The entire market is wasteful and exists without proper market forces" - the entire point of programmatic advertising is each impression is sold in an auction, so it can be a very efficient way to buy advertising. The problem is when there are too many middle men between the advertiser and the audience taking a cut, this is why "supply path optimization" is becoming a big thing in the industry by helping you answer "how can I get to my audience with the fewest people in the middle?" 3)TV and traditional media wasn't necessarily the most efficient way to advertise, the "spray and pray" approach. Advertisers and TV networks are beginning to realize this, that's why a more and more of the ads you're watching on TV are actually placed there via programmatic advertising and the percentage is only rising.

ujki1 7y ago

An another study [1] suggest that the effect could be rather small. > We find that when a user’s cookie is available publisher’s revenue increases by only about 4%. This corresponds to an average increase of $0.00008per advertisement. Although I didn't fully read either studies so I'm not sure if they are really about the same thing. [1] https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/05/WEIS_2019_paper_38.pdf https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/...

erentz 7y ago

Does targeted vs non targeted really have an impact on sales? And if targeted was gone everywhere would it really cause a drop in revenue? It seems (from the little I’ve seen over the years) that targeting doesn’t have much impact. And that advertising budgets are pretty fixed as a percentage so revenues wouldn’t go down if everyone had to stop targeting.