3 ms·

You make some good points but is the trade-off worth it. Finding out where someone is from these days is fairly trivial using the IP address: the shortage of I

You make some good points but is the trade-off worth it. Finding out where someone is from these days is fairly trivial using the IP address: the shortage of IPV4 means that it may not be 100% accurate sometimes though. So, using your example, working out that I am in Minnesota should be easy enough. At that point, I'd wager that people will either buy from Amazon (sell many cheap/fake/knockoff stuff that does the job) or would buy from Minnesota Bob's Local Car Parts Emporium... no data to back that up but I'd imagine either of those scenarios would account for a large number of people - My own preference (for the most part) these days is local business with a delivery option (not Amazon any more due to reasons). With your example, there is a whole bunch of extra options in there that I would put serious money on that no one can tell what I want from mining the shit out of me. Not Google, not anyone. Even with all the data they can muster, there is no way that they can make the decision that "this guy wants ad number 15, not ad number 16" with enough accuracy that the people paying to have their ad shown are actually getting a return. With context-sensitive ads, I'd wager there'd be a high chance that someone in Minnesota searching for carburetors that sees an ad for Minnesota Bob's Local Car Parts Emporium would want to buy from him... again, no data to back it up, but equally, I have yet to see any substantive data that mining actually results in an appreciable, measurable increase in sales... none! I still believe it's all (mostly) a ponzi scheme.

urthor 6y ago
You're misunderstanding a significant part of the equation. Also, companies measure their advertising success in their conversion rate and A/B test vs broad based ads that target more widely. They have the opportunity to advertise super broadly if they so choose, and can measure that impact. By narrowing the targeting, advertisers can advertise to "just" the people who are over a certain level of confidence interval, and not advertise to the people who don't give a damn. Ad targeting is actually an exclusion business, it's about companies wanting to rule out as many people as possible, reducing their ad spend, who are then picked up by others. Companies just don't want to buy junk ad slots. There are actually not all that many ad slots and the cost can get moderately steep for broad base, low conversion ads.
- _Understated_ 6y ago
  I get what you are saying, however I do not believe for one second that there is a measurable change in sales (for the company that places an ad) for an ad like the one I mentioned above vs the mega-targetted, data-mined tracked-to-hell-and-back ads that companies like FB and Google tell you about. Sure, a scattergun approach would be pointless but someone in Minnesota searching for carburetors has provided enough data in that one search that I don't believe targetted, mined, tracked users will be more lucrative. I've asked on here before if anyone had a link to research that wasn't commissioned by an ad company about targetted and mined data and no one has provided one. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't believe targetting, mining, whatever you want to call it, moves the needle enough except for the ones at the top of the tree selling the belief (Google, FB etc.)
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    You'd be wrong - lots of data and very precise targeting can multiply the effectiveness of some kinds of ad campaign by 10x. That's the kind of change that turns an unviable business into a viable one. I suspect that if ML based targeting gets as good as it theoretically could (ie. The ads predict what I need before I even think I need it), there would be another 10x gain.
    - _Understated_ 6y ago
      > That's the kind of change that turns an unviable business into a viable one. What, like going from 1 in every billion people clicking on your ad to 1 in every 100 million? I'm sure that in some niches there is going to be a particular data set that yields mega results for someone. But I'm talking as a general concept, that the whole advertising industry is built on total lies all the way down and that all the data mining hardly moves the needle compared to context-related ads like my example. I suspect that no one wants to know if it actually works or not. It'd be like pulling on a thread that everyone can see, plain as day, but no one wants to touch it as there are hundreds of billions of dollars on the line if they do. That, plus people are employed and have livelihoods built around ads so they won't jeapordise that. I don't buy it. I still think it's all bullshit. But let's say it's true. There still remains the fact that many don't want their data in anyone's database in the first place. It's an industry built on gathering data without consent - and before you say there are opt-outs and all that, the industry built itself up long before any rules came into effect.

urthor 6y ago

You're misunderstanding a significant part of the equation. Also, companies measure their advertising success in their conversion rate and A/B test vs broad based ads that target more widely. They have the opportunity to advertise super broadly if they so choose, and can measure that impact. By narrowing the targeting, advertisers can advertise to "just" the people who are over a certain level of confidence interval, and not advertise to the people who don't give a damn. Ad targeting is actually an exclusion business, it's about companies wanting to rule out as many people as possible, reducing their ad spend, who are then picked up by others. Companies just don't want to buy junk ad slots. There are actually not all that many ad slots and the cost can get moderately steep for broad base, low conversion ads.

_Understated_ 6y ago
I get what you are saying, however I do not believe for one second that there is a measurable change in sales (for the company that places an ad) for an ad like the one I mentioned above vs the mega-targetted, data-mined tracked-to-hell-and-back ads that companies like FB and Google tell you about. Sure, a scattergun approach would be pointless but someone in Minnesota searching for carburetors has provided enough data in that one search that I don't believe targetted, mined, tracked users will be more lucrative. I've asked on here before if anyone had a link to research that wasn't commissioned by an ad company about targetted and mined data and no one has provided one. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't believe targetting, mining, whatever you want to call it, moves the needle enough except for the ones at the top of the tree selling the belief (Google, FB etc.)
- londons_explore 6y ago
  You'd be wrong - lots of data and very precise targeting can multiply the effectiveness of some kinds of ad campaign by 10x. That's the kind of change that turns an unviable business into a viable one. I suspect that if ML based targeting gets as good as it theoretically could (ie. The ads predict what I need before I even think I need it), there would be another 10x gain.
  - _Understated_ 6y ago
    > That's the kind of change that turns an unviable business into a viable one. What, like going from 1 in every billion people clicking on your ad to 1 in every 100 million? I'm sure that in some niches there is going to be a particular data set that yields mega results for someone. But I'm talking as a general concept, that the whole advertising industry is built on total lies all the way down and that all the data mining hardly moves the needle compared to context-related ads like my example. I suspect that no one wants to know if it actually works or not. It'd be like pulling on a thread that everyone can see, plain as day, but no one wants to touch it as there are hundreds of billions of dollars on the line if they do. That, plus people are employed and have livelihoods built around ads so they won't jeapordise that. I don't buy it. I still think it's all bullshit. But let's say it's true. There still remains the fact that many don't want their data in anyone's database in the first place. It's an industry built on gathering data without consent - and before you say there are opt-outs and all that, the industry built itself up long before any rules came into effect.