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Before I completely dropped social media, I had a f—k the algorithm attitude towards the ads. I made a point of clicking through everything that was completely

by dhosek 5y ago

Before I completely dropped social media, I had a f—k the algorithm attitude towards the ads. I made a point of clicking through everything that was completely uninteresting to me. That road led to a non-stop flood of class-action lawyer ads.

manwe150 5y ago
I like to read this with the belief that his attitude towards the ads had somehow led to the class-action lawyer ads being 100% relevant.
- nolaspring 5y ago
  It’s a race condition to the bottom.
gnicholas 5y ago
I’ve heard that mesothelioma class action lawyer advertisements are among the most expensive on social media. Cynical hypothesis: once the platforms realized you’ll click on anything, they decided to show you their highest-compensated ads.
- Breza 5y ago
  Not cynical at all, this is exactly how Real Time Bidding (RTB) works.
- winterchil 5y ago
  You're not wrong but it depends on the platform and campaign. If the ads are bought click-optimized then yes... if conversion optimized then the algorithms will learn to avoid zealous clickers.
- laurent92 5y ago
  It’s funny, once I started watching luxury houses (I became rich last year, bought a house and wanted inspiration to decorate), I got flooded with ads about “How to become rich”. (Obviously none of those include programming…).
- paulcole 5y ago
  Personal injury (caused by negligent 3rd party) but not necessarily class action (and especially not workers comp cases) are consistently the highest cost clicks I bid on regularly.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    Those ads mock me. Have a severe negligence case that nearly killed entire family. By time we recovered enough to deal with legal side the statue of limitations had passed.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  That's not cynical at all; that's exactly what i-the-human-looking-at-trends would do, and it's almost certainly what an automated system would go for as well.
voldacar 5y ago
It's interesting how this exposes the dynamics of ad-space. Advertisements as points in a metric space A. Clicking ads as a contractive mapping C:A->A. Class-action lawsuit ads as a fixed point in A when iterating C. This must imply something interesting about human psychology or ad economics, or both. Why does the fixed point end up as class action suits and not something else? It's not what I would have expected.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  I don’t think you can infer human nature here as much as psychology of advertisers. I think it was GrubHub that started advertising on porn sites at one point and published some interesting findings from that. The reason the started to advertise there was because it was cheap and because other food related businesses were not advertising there. What they noticed is that most ads on porn sites are for porn, so ads for food stood out. And it didn’t hurt that often times people get hungry after they are done with porn. So in my mind the class action lawyers are just a niche that happens to advertise there and is the lowest common denominator that matches a wide range of people when nothing more targeted does. It could be mattresses or shoes or something else, but right now it’s lawyers.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Thinking about it, one of the marketing received wisdom things is that you often want to associate your product with sex. What is probably the easiest way in the world to associate your product with sex?
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Ye it is quite strange that there is such a price difference between sites for the same ad CPM when the advertiser can select audiance somewhat through tracking anyway.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  Why is clicking ads a function from the space of ads to the space of ads? Why is it a metric space? Why is it a contraction?
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I've done this, and it led to a lot of ads for shoes.

by dhosek 5y ago

manwe150 5y ago

I like to read this with the belief that his attitude towards the ads had somehow led to the class-action lawyer ads being 100% relevant.

nolaspring 5y ago
It’s a race condition to the bottom.

gnicholas 5y ago

I’ve heard that mesothelioma class action lawyer advertisements are among the most expensive on social media. Cynical hypothesis: once the platforms realized you’ll click on anything, they decided to show you their highest-compensated ads.

Breza 5y ago
Not cynical at all, this is exactly how Real Time Bidding (RTB) works.
winterchil 5y ago
You're not wrong but it depends on the platform and campaign. If the ads are bought click-optimized then yes... if conversion optimized then the algorithms will learn to avoid zealous clickers.
laurent92 5y ago
It’s funny, once I started watching luxury houses (I became rich last year, bought a house and wanted inspiration to decorate), I got flooded with ads about “How to become rich”. (Obviously none of those include programming…).
paulcole 5y ago
Personal injury (caused by negligent 3rd party) but not necessarily class action (and especially not workers comp cases) are consistently the highest cost clicks I bid on regularly.
- treeman79 5y ago
  Those ads mock me. Have a severe negligence case that nearly killed entire family. By time we recovered enough to deal with legal side the statue of limitations had passed.
hprotagonist 5y ago
That's not cynical at all; that's exactly what i-the-human-looking-at-trends would do, and it's almost certainly what an automated system would go for as well.

voldacar 5y ago

It's interesting how this exposes the dynamics of ad-space. Advertisements as points in a metric space A. Clicking ads as a contractive mapping C:A->A. Class-action lawsuit ads as a fixed point in A when iterating C. This must imply something interesting about human psychology or ad economics, or both. Why does the fixed point end up as class action suits and not something else? It's not what I would have expected.

IgorPartola 5y ago
I don’t think you can infer human nature here as much as psychology of advertisers. I think it was GrubHub that started advertising on porn sites at one point and published some interesting findings from that. The reason the started to advertise there was because it was cheap and because other food related businesses were not advertising there. What they noticed is that most ads on porn sites are for porn, so ads for food stood out. And it didn’t hurt that often times people get hungry after they are done with porn. So in my mind the class action lawyers are just a niche that happens to advertise there and is the lowest common denominator that matches a wide range of people when nothing more targeted does. It could be mattresses or shoes or something else, but right now it’s lawyers.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Thinking about it, one of the marketing received wisdom things is that you often want to associate your product with sex. What is probably the easiest way in the world to associate your product with sex?
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Ye it is quite strange that there is such a price difference between sites for the same ad CPM when the advertiser can select audiance somewhat through tracking anyway.
l33t2328 5y ago
Why is clicking ads a function from the space of ads to the space of ads? Why is it a metric space? Why is it a contraction?

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I've done this, and it led to a lot of ads for shoes.