4 ms·

In the good old days, one would buy and read a computer magazines equally for its content as well as the ads. They were an important source of information in a

by _ph_ 6y ago

In the good old days, one would buy and read a computer magazines equally for its content as well as the ads. They were an important source of information in a day and age without the WWW. Of course, the advertising back then used a trick which seems to escape all modern advertising think tanks: they had great user targetting without shady tracking schemes, by advertising things a magazine reader would be interested in. Imagine this trick being used in todays web :p.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
failuser 6y ago
There was a report that targeting article contents yielded better revenue than targeting the audience for some European company, but I can’t find a link right away.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- failuser 6y ago
  This is not what I was looking for, but NYT had a similar experience: https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/01/20/dont-be-creepy/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/01/20/dont-...
- samatman 6y ago
  Subjectively, that makes sense to me. I might be into archery and photography, but if I'm browsing an article about lenses and I see an ad for arrows, that's just creepy. But if I see an ad for lenses, or even gimbals, I might go and buy one on the spot. Or put it in the cart and sleep on it, whatever. At this point it's worse than that (for advertisers), because I'll never see the targeted arrow ad, since I block as much surveillance tech as I can without disabling Javascript entirely. But if a blog serves same-site content which happens to be an ad, and some of them are smart enough to do that, I'll see it.
- pabs3 6y ago
  https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/03/stop_tracking_increase_revenue_effectiveness/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/03/stop_tracking_increas... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737352
loup-vaillant 6y ago
I used to subscribe to a model aircraft magazine. The core of the thing is ads: they try a model, see how it builds, feel how it flies, write a nice article with pretty pictures. Then I read it, and dream.
pmoriarty 6y ago
I learned to distrust ads from an early age. Back in those days cover art and ads for games often had art drawn by artists in physical media, or photographs, which the 8-bit games of the day never had a snowball's chance in hell of living up to. The blurbs in ads could never really tell you whether the gameplay was any good. And, most of all, ads almost always lied. I learned that marketers and advertisers would say anything to make a sale, and that it was best to just ignore them. As a result, I never ever bought anything based on an ad... however, an ad might make me aware that something existed and entice me to investigate further. Then I'd read reviews, which too often were almost as bad as the ads, especially in the popular gaming/software magazines which preferred to write puff pieces about everything they reviewed... probably to stay on the good side of advertisers and to keep getting sent free products to review. It was rare to find honest reviews, and even then it was hard to ultimately know whether the product was actually any good until you tried it yourself, and did so for an extended period of time. I've wasted so much money on products which seemed to be good at first but ultimately turned out to be trash or not what I actually wanted/needed. Advertising rarely makes any of this any better. Usually it makes it worse.
- Lex-2008 6y ago
  > an ad might make me aware that something existed and entice me to investigate further. I believe it's one of points of ads: when choosing what product to buy, you're likely to choose between options A and B, which you've heard about (either from ads, or friends), and not option C, which you've never heard about.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
> Imagine this trick being used in todays web :p. Oh no, that would involve the people operating the website to actually have to give a shit about what ads are shown, and worse, they would have to interact with their advertisers!

by _ph_ 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

failuser 6y ago

There was a report that targeting article contents yielded better revenue than targeting the audience for some European company, but I can’t find a link right away.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
failuser 6y ago
This is not what I was looking for, but NYT had a similar experience: https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/01/20/dont-be-creepy/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2019/01/20/dont-...
samatman 6y ago
Subjectively, that makes sense to me. I might be into archery and photography, but if I'm browsing an article about lenses and I see an ad for arrows, that's just creepy. But if I see an ad for lenses, or even gimbals, I might go and buy one on the spot. Or put it in the cart and sleep on it, whatever. At this point it's worse than that (for advertisers), because I'll never see the targeted arrow ad, since I block as much surveillance tech as I can without disabling Javascript entirely. But if a blog serves same-site content which happens to be an ad, and some of them are smart enough to do that, I'll see it.
pabs3 6y ago
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/03/stop_tracking_increase_revenue_effectiveness/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/03/stop_tracking_increas... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737352

loup-vaillant 6y ago

I used to subscribe to a model aircraft magazine. The core of the thing is ads: they try a model, see how it builds, feel how it flies, write a nice article with pretty pictures. Then I read it, and dream.

pmoriarty 6y ago

I learned to distrust ads from an early age. Back in those days cover art and ads for games often had art drawn by artists in physical media, or photographs, which the 8-bit games of the day never had a snowball's chance in hell of living up to. The blurbs in ads could never really tell you whether the gameplay was any good. And, most of all, ads almost always lied. I learned that marketers and advertisers would say anything to make a sale, and that it was best to just ignore them. As a result, I never ever bought anything based on an ad... however, an ad might make me aware that something existed and entice me to investigate further. Then I'd read reviews, which too often were almost as bad as the ads, especially in the popular gaming/software magazines which preferred to write puff pieces about everything they reviewed... probably to stay on the good side of advertisers and to keep getting sent free products to review. It was rare to find honest reviews, and even then it was hard to ultimately know whether the product was actually any good until you tried it yourself, and did so for an extended period of time. I've wasted so much money on products which seemed to be good at first but ultimately turned out to be trash or not what I actually wanted/needed. Advertising rarely makes any of this any better. Usually it makes it worse.

Lex-2008 6y ago
> an ad might make me aware that something existed and entice me to investigate further. I believe it's one of points of ads: when choosing what product to buy, you're likely to choose between options A and B, which you've heard about (either from ads, or friends), and not option C, which you've never heard about.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

> Imagine this trick being used in todays web :p. Oh no, that would involve the people operating the website to actually have to give a shit about what ads are shown, and worse, they would have to interact with their advertisers!