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"This entire thesis hinges on targeted advertising being effective. " Targeted ads are unequivocally more effective than non targeted ads, on the aggregate - t

by jariel 6y ago

"This entire thesis hinges on targeted advertising being effective. " Targeted ads are unequivocally more effective than non targeted ads, on the aggregate - there is no dispute other than at the margins. Do you think that advertising makeup to the general population has the same effectiveness than advertising it to women? Or women who have shown an interest in makeup? Ads are complicated and nuanced, but everyone in the industry already knows this. There will always be science at the margins as we discover the means by which people truly engage, but otherwise, there is no arguing with core demographic targeting. It would be like completely non-technical people saying "Javascript is completely ineffective because of null ambiguity" whereas it's universally used, and the limitations of JS are recognized to all but the most junior developers.

tomnipotent 6y ago
The general consensus is that personalized advertising, specifically, is no better than contextual advertising that came before it. Everyone was fine and happy with contextual advertising.
- jariel 6y ago
  Yes, this is true, but I suggest it's because despite the privacy invasion, we don't know that much about individuals. We don't need to though. Literally just basic demographics, plus a few interest points ... that's all I think we need to do well of those could be reliable.
  - cm2012 6y ago
    This is incredibly not true. For one, the best data point FB has on predicting personal likelihood to click an ad is which ads that person has clicked in the past.
    - jariel 6y ago
      I don't know what you are objecting to i.e. Social Media surprisingly not knowing a lot about us - or - the need only for relatively small amount of solid demo data. On the first point - they just don't know that much about us. That's what the whole post is about (!) They were lying advertisers ad to the probabilistic estimates of who we are. Go here: https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en Google will show what they know about you if you have that on. It's not very accurate at all. It's very fuzzy. For me they have wrong age, a lot of wrong interests. So they surprisingly don't know a lot, just because someone clicks on an add ... that is not a lot of information - there's so many reasons we click on ads. Google thinks I'm into cars and I don't even drive, I hate cars! As for basic targeting - it's mostly what advertisers need. So age, education, income, zip code (or zip code classification), rough location would be great. Plus just a few, solid interests (real ones, not estimated) - and that would be a big step forward for ads. So yes - our privacy is fairly aggressively invaded at the same time they can only glean so much from it. Seems like a Paradox.
    - tomnipotent 6y ago
      > the best data point FB Do you have any evidence to back this up? I can't find any published literature where Facebook has hinted this, including this paper [0] saying: > As expected the most important thing is to have the right features: those capturing historical information about the user or ad dominate other types of features. 0. https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical-lessons-from-predicting-clicks-on-ads-at-facebook.pdf https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical...
- cm2012 6y ago
  Wow, the "general consensus". That's why FBs advertising revenue is so low compared to Reddit! If only personalized advertising were effective, FB could be worth something.
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    That's why Google average revenue per user is so much higher than Facebook.
    - cm2012 6y ago
      Google display network (contextual ads) is tiny. Google search is direct intent, very different.
      - tomnipotent 6y ago
        It's still 15-16% of Google ad revenues, or about 40% of Facebook.
      - Closi 6y ago
        Google search also uses personalised advertising. If you search for restaurants you will get ads for restaurants nearby, if you search for clothes it will match the ad results to your gender if google knows it, you can also do the same remarketing techniques with other ads (eg if someone has visited your website and they search for a related topic you can make sure your ad is displayed).

by jariel 6y ago

tomnipotent 6y ago

The general consensus is that personalized advertising, specifically, is no better than contextual advertising that came before it. Everyone was fine and happy with contextual advertising.

jariel 6y ago
Yes, this is true, but I suggest it's because despite the privacy invasion, we don't know that much about individuals. We don't need to though. Literally just basic demographics, plus a few interest points ... that's all I think we need to do well of those could be reliable.
- cm2012 6y ago
  This is incredibly not true. For one, the best data point FB has on predicting personal likelihood to click an ad is which ads that person has clicked in the past.
  - jariel 6y ago
    I don't know what you are objecting to i.e. Social Media surprisingly not knowing a lot about us - or - the need only for relatively small amount of solid demo data. On the first point - they just don't know that much about us. That's what the whole post is about (!) They were lying advertisers ad to the probabilistic estimates of who we are. Go here: https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated?hl=en Google will show what they know about you if you have that on. It's not very accurate at all. It's very fuzzy. For me they have wrong age, a lot of wrong interests. So they surprisingly don't know a lot, just because someone clicks on an add ... that is not a lot of information - there's so many reasons we click on ads. Google thinks I'm into cars and I don't even drive, I hate cars! As for basic targeting - it's mostly what advertisers need. So age, education, income, zip code (or zip code classification), rough location would be great. Plus just a few, solid interests (real ones, not estimated) - and that would be a big step forward for ads. So yes - our privacy is fairly aggressively invaded at the same time they can only glean so much from it. Seems like a Paradox.
  - tomnipotent 6y ago
    > the best data point FB Do you have any evidence to back this up? I can't find any published literature where Facebook has hinted this, including this paper [0] saying: > As expected the most important thing is to have the right features: those capturing historical information about the user or ad dominate other types of features. 0. https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical-lessons-from-predicting-clicks-on-ads-at-facebook.pdf https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/practical...
cm2012 6y ago
Wow, the "general consensus". That's why FBs advertising revenue is so low compared to Reddit! If only personalized advertising were effective, FB could be worth something.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  That's why Google average revenue per user is so much higher than Facebook.
  - cm2012 6y ago
    Google display network (contextual ads) is tiny. Google search is direct intent, very different.
    - tomnipotent 6y ago
      It's still 15-16% of Google ad revenues, or about 40% of Facebook.
    - Closi 6y ago
      Google search also uses personalised advertising. If you search for restaurants you will get ads for restaurants nearby, if you search for clothes it will match the ad results to your gender if google knows it, you can also do the same remarketing techniques with other ads (eg if someone has visited your website and they search for a related topic you can make sure your ad is displayed).