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> The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearin

> The economic value of a well targeted ad is probably 10x otherwise. > Ergo - unless you are willing to pay for apps - you might now see 10x more ads appearing on pages than otherwise. I'm afraid that this is nonsense. If the economic value of selling bread went down by 10x, do you think people would start offering you 10x as much bread?

jariel 6y ago
Only someone with absolutely no understanding of advertising would say this, because the effectiveness of targeting is a given, it's not controversial. I would urge you to consider the real economics of the situation instead of propagating bad information, and embarrassing yourself. Ironically, the evidence for the relative value of ads is right on Facebook Ad Platform itself! You can run an experiment today, right now. Create a Facebook ad, and send people to your web site, with some kind of intended action. Send 'Ad 1' to a completely untargtted audience. Send 'Ad 2' to a crudely targeted audience (say, nation and demographic) Send 'Ad 3' to an interest based demographic. You will right there, plain as day, in a single day, see that ads 1, 2 and 3 will each have an order of magnitude of a different conversion rate. Most public commentary on ads is based on ignorance, which is somewhat understandable because it's domain specific knowledge, but because it's a 'personal issue' to some, they have an opinion about it. Targeted ads are unambiguously better for everyone: sellers, marketers, exchanges, buyers. The issue is privacy.
- johnday 6y ago
  I know that targeted advertising is more effective and I am not disputing that. I did not dispute it in my comment. I am disputing your random assertion that, if advertising became less effective (say by removing targeting), the quantity of advertising that people see would go up significantly. The amount of adverts that people see currently is not based solely on their economic value - it is based on their value relative to how much people are willing to put up with being advertised to. If advertising becomes less valuable, that doesn't mean people will suddenly put up with more of it. Indeed, if the value of adverts went down, I would expect to see fewer advertisements, not more, since the value of showing them to people is now less relative to their willingness to put up with them.

jariel 6y ago

Only someone with absolutely no understanding of advertising would say this, because the effectiveness of targeting is a given, it's not controversial. I would urge you to consider the real economics of the situation instead of propagating bad information, and embarrassing yourself. Ironically, the evidence for the relative value of ads is right on Facebook Ad Platform itself! You can run an experiment today, right now. Create a Facebook ad, and send people to your web site, with some kind of intended action. Send 'Ad 1' to a completely untargtted audience. Send 'Ad 2' to a crudely targeted audience (say, nation and demographic) Send 'Ad 3' to an interest based demographic. You will right there, plain as day, in a single day, see that ads 1, 2 and 3 will each have an order of magnitude of a different conversion rate. Most public commentary on ads is based on ignorance, which is somewhat understandable because it's domain specific knowledge, but because it's a 'personal issue' to some, they have an opinion about it. Targeted ads are unambiguously better for everyone: sellers, marketers, exchanges, buyers. The issue is privacy.

johnday 6y ago
I know that targeted advertising is more effective and I am not disputing that. I did not dispute it in my comment. I am disputing your random assertion that, if advertising became less effective (say by removing targeting), the quantity of advertising that people see would go up significantly. The amount of adverts that people see currently is not based solely on their economic value - it is based on their value relative to how much people are willing to put up with being advertised to. If advertising becomes less valuable, that doesn't mean people will suddenly put up with more of it. Indeed, if the value of adverts went down, I would expect to see fewer advertisements, not more, since the value of showing them to people is now less relative to their willingness to put up with them.