6 ms·

I think the implication is that using the context of the page to serve ads to users (i.e. you're reading an article on beer, so I'm serving you an ad about beer

I think the implication is that using the context of the page to serve ads to users (i.e. you're reading an article on beer, so I'm serving you an ad about beers) is better than using context about the user to serve ads (i.e. you're reading an article about beers, and I'm serving you ads about that one item you've searched on Amazon last week).

aequitas 6y ago
> and I'm serving you ads about that one item you've searched on Amazon last week) As a side note, Amazon is not that big yet in the Netherlands so it would probably be something searched on Bol.com. The problem I'm having with ads nowadays, besides that they are indeed often out of context, is that they are far to late and outdated. Because most times advertisements for a product start to appear when I already bought said item. So for me if they do tracing in a sense I'd rather have them double down on it and provide real 'value' to me in their ads. But I still prefer no tracking at all.
- 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
  But they can’t predict the future so the ads will always be bad. Targeted ads would probably work best in categories of things that you buy regularly, like snacks. I’m not sure how they’d get that sort of information though.
  - fendy3002 6y ago
    Or restaurants / food chains. One for sure is to target people (esp teenagers / working age) who search for malls, parks or shopping districts.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > Targeted ads would probably work best in categories of things that you buy regularly, like snacks. If you show me an ad for something I already buy regularly, are you hoping it will cause me to increase my habitual amount? That doesn't really sound like an effective ad.
    - 34679 6y ago
      Suppose I know you eat pretzels every day. If I sell pretzels, I want you to eat my pretzels every day.
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        That's a great idea if I've never heard of your pretzels, but it's still not going to work if I have.
        34679 6y ago
        Nearly every beer drinker in the US has heard of Budweiser, yet they still spend millions on advertisements. It may not work on you, but they are definitely getting a return on that investment or they wouldn't keep doing it.
        catalogia 6y ago
        Maybe the core competency of advertisers is to convince businesses their services have value, not to convince consumers that products have value. The later is done only insofar as it's necessary for the former.
        aequitas 6y ago
        It will be partly to attract new (young) customers to their brand and also to reaffirm the brand image with existing customers. You see this a lot with car commercials. You won't buy a car after seeing the average car commercial. Most of them don't even explain why you should buy a specific car over another. They focus more on the aesthetics. They sell you the idea of being part of something by driving a car of this brand. And even if you have already bought a car for that brand, seeing a commercial again reenforces your binding with the brand (given you feel positive about the commercial message). This works really well with cars as for most people they are emotional irrational purchases.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
      I mean this at a categorical level. I saw a new brand of ice cream the other day. Bought it and liked it. Will buy again. Saw a new beer the other day while shopping for beer. Bought that too. Also going back for more. I’m not particularly brand loyal. There’s lots of things you could show me an ad for and I’d buy it just to try it.
nicoburns 6y ago
> I think the implication is that using the context of the page... is better than using context about the user I think this is largely true. My favourite ad-supported site is The Online Photographer, a blog on photography which has ads about... camera equipment. No tracking or 3rd party script required. [0]: https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photogr...
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Exactly. It's not rocket science. You don't need to chase the user, retarget them to death, etc. Cool, you're tracking your user and showing them shoe ads over a tech blog, a news website and a pet care website. Doesn't this sound weird to you? Micro-targeting is good money for the ad brokers, not the advertisers nor the publishers
- libertine 6y ago
  Part of the problem os contextual ads is wastage. One of the advantages of tracking users is to optimize your spend, taking into account your reach and the frequency a user see's your ad. The result could be during one month you're seeing a Guitar Brand Ad in your favorite music blog, and you're a saxophone player. Yet the ad was shown to you 30+ times, when in reality it could have been capped to 10-12 times. Some brands can afford this wastage, and factor in for it - hell some brands thrived with wastage (like those who grew in TV golden age, for example P&G) - but for a lot of them, this is too much.
  - simias 6y ago
    Is it really wasted though? Back when I still bothered to watch TV with ads, I felt like seeing the same ad for the same product dozens of times per day had a brainwashing effect. It gets into your head. At the very least it creates brand awareness and you're unlikely to forget about the company or the product. It also forms a strong association between the subject (in the parent's case, professional photography) and the brand/product. Even if it doesn't result in a direct sale it might still be highly beneficial for the brand. I mean if it wasn't, would we see so much product placement in movies and TV? Those are not proper ads, there's no call to action, the viewer has to go looking for the product if they like it. But it does wonder for brand recognition and prestige.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Ah not really alcohol related adds and content is heavily regulated - much more so in the USA as a result of its puritan background. I work in this area and we spend lot of time jumping through hoops - to avoid problems.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Puritans had very little effect on American culture - please stop repeating this trope.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    Really you don't see that influence
jariel 6y ago
There are no primary exchanges for targeting content. You can't 'put your ad near an article for beer' at any real scale. In the old days, if you were paying $$$ for a spot in a magazine, you might be able to control where your ad was going to be placed, and certainly today, if you want to do that, you can find ways. Certainly you could buy ads on a 'beer blog'. But by and large, this doesn't exist at any meaningful scale where you can just go out and buy 'a bunch of ad spots in articles about beer'. Second - it's something, but still arguably not more effective than individual targeting. Most products and service have baseline demo. targets and that's quite important. If you're L'OREAL you really don't want to be hustling your new eyeliner to middle aged men, that's pretty much a 'first order concern'. Targeting does mostly work, we should not be in denial about that.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  > If you're L'OREAL you really don't want to be hustling your new eyeliner to middle aged men, that's pretty much a 'first order concern'. You also don't want to hustle your high end eyeliner to ladies reading blogs about trucks and ATVs. Targeting works, but it's also a rabbit hole.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Diminishing marginal returns to scope, definitely.
  - smabie 6y ago
    What does eyeliner have to do with trucks and ATVs?
afiori 6y ago
Also if I were to see ads for something unrelated in my city on a small LA brewery web site I would feel a bit suspicious. Instinctively I still consider websites as publishers of their own ads, so if they show ads for things completely unrelated to their service/page I judge them negatively for it.

aequitas 6y ago

> and I'm serving you ads about that one item you've searched on Amazon last week) As a side note, Amazon is not that big yet in the Netherlands so it would probably be something searched on Bol.com. The problem I'm having with ads nowadays, besides that they are indeed often out of context, is that they are far to late and outdated. Because most times advertisements for a product start to appear when I already bought said item. So for me if they do tracing in a sense I'd rather have them double down on it and provide real 'value' to me in their ads. But I still prefer no tracking at all.

2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
But they can’t predict the future so the ads will always be bad. Targeted ads would probably work best in categories of things that you buy regularly, like snacks. I’m not sure how they’d get that sort of information though.
- fendy3002 6y ago
  Or restaurants / food chains. One for sure is to target people (esp teenagers / working age) who search for malls, parks or shopping districts.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Targeted ads would probably work best in categories of things that you buy regularly, like snacks. If you show me an ad for something I already buy regularly, are you hoping it will cause me to increase my habitual amount? That doesn't really sound like an effective ad.
  - 34679 6y ago
    Suppose I know you eat pretzels every day. If I sell pretzels, I want you to eat my pretzels every day.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      That's a great idea if I've never heard of your pretzels, but it's still not going to work if I have.
      - 34679 6y ago
        Nearly every beer drinker in the US has heard of Budweiser, yet they still spend millions on advertisements. It may not work on you, but they are definitely getting a return on that investment or they wouldn't keep doing it.
        catalogia 6y ago
        Maybe the core competency of advertisers is to convince businesses their services have value, not to convince consumers that products have value. The later is done only insofar as it's necessary for the former.
        aequitas 6y ago
        It will be partly to attract new (young) customers to their brand and also to reaffirm the brand image with existing customers. You see this a lot with car commercials. You won't buy a car after seeing the average car commercial. Most of them don't even explain why you should buy a specific car over another. They focus more on the aesthetics. They sell you the idea of being part of something by driving a car of this brand. And even if you have already bought a car for that brand, seeing a commercial again reenforces your binding with the brand (given you feel positive about the commercial message). This works really well with cars as for most people they are emotional irrational purchases.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
    I mean this at a categorical level. I saw a new brand of ice cream the other day. Bought it and liked it. Will buy again. Saw a new beer the other day while shopping for beer. Bought that too. Also going back for more. I’m not particularly brand loyal. There’s lots of things you could show me an ad for and I’d buy it just to try it.

nicoburns 6y ago

> I think the implication is that using the context of the page... is better than using context about the user I think this is largely true. My favourite ad-supported site is The Online Photographer, a blog on photography which has ads about... camera equipment. No tracking or 3rd party script required. [0]: https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photogr...

raverbashing 6y ago
Exactly. It's not rocket science. You don't need to chase the user, retarget them to death, etc. Cool, you're tracking your user and showing them shoe ads over a tech blog, a news website and a pet care website. Doesn't this sound weird to you? Micro-targeting is good money for the ad brokers, not the advertisers nor the publishers
libertine 6y ago
Part of the problem os contextual ads is wastage. One of the advantages of tracking users is to optimize your spend, taking into account your reach and the frequency a user see's your ad. The result could be during one month you're seeing a Guitar Brand Ad in your favorite music blog, and you're a saxophone player. Yet the ad was shown to you 30+ times, when in reality it could have been capped to 10-12 times. Some brands can afford this wastage, and factor in for it - hell some brands thrived with wastage (like those who grew in TV golden age, for example P&G) - but for a lot of them, this is too much.
- simias 6y ago
  Is it really wasted though? Back when I still bothered to watch TV with ads, I felt like seeing the same ad for the same product dozens of times per day had a brainwashing effect. It gets into your head. At the very least it creates brand awareness and you're unlikely to forget about the company or the product. It also forms a strong association between the subject (in the parent's case, professional photography) and the brand/product. Even if it doesn't result in a direct sale it might still be highly beneficial for the brand. I mean if it wasn't, would we see so much product placement in movies and TV? Those are not proper ads, there's no call to action, the viewer has to go looking for the product if they like it. But it does wonder for brand recognition and prestige.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

Ah not really alcohol related adds and content is heavily regulated - much more so in the USA as a result of its puritan background. I work in this area and we spend lot of time jumping through hoops - to avoid problems.

oh_sigh 6y ago
Puritans had very little effect on American culture - please stop repeating this trope.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Really you don't see that influence

jariel 6y ago

There are no primary exchanges for targeting content. You can't 'put your ad near an article for beer' at any real scale. In the old days, if you were paying $$$ for a spot in a magazine, you might be able to control where your ad was going to be placed, and certainly today, if you want to do that, you can find ways. Certainly you could buy ads on a 'beer blog'. But by and large, this doesn't exist at any meaningful scale where you can just go out and buy 'a bunch of ad spots in articles about beer'. Second - it's something, but still arguably not more effective than individual targeting. Most products and service have baseline demo. targets and that's quite important. If you're L'OREAL you really don't want to be hustling your new eyeliner to middle aged men, that's pretty much a 'first order concern'. Targeting does mostly work, we should not be in denial about that.

Spooky23 6y ago
> If you're L'OREAL you really don't want to be hustling your new eyeliner to middle aged men, that's pretty much a 'first order concern'. You also don't want to hustle your high end eyeliner to ladies reading blogs about trucks and ATVs. Targeting works, but it's also a rabbit hole.
- jariel 6y ago
  Diminishing marginal returns to scope, definitely.
- smabie 6y ago
  What does eyeliner have to do with trucks and ATVs?

afiori 6y ago

Also if I were to see ads for something unrelated in my city on a small LA brewery web site I would feel a bit suspicious. Instinctively I still consider websites as publishers of their own ads, so if they show ads for things completely unrelated to their service/page I judge them negatively for it.