4 ms·

Even with all the tracking, the generated ads still suck, showing things already purchased. This reminds me of the overhyped lead generation tools out there, th

• Engineering-MD 5y ago
  The explanation I have heard previously is that people have bought an item are actually more likely to buy another: unhappy with the current purchase, or people who need multiple items. Sure, for most people it’s irrelevant as they are happy with their purchase, but most ads are ignored anyway.
  • bobthepanda 5y ago
    at the same time it's very easy to run into anecdotes people have like "you bought the 5th edition of this college textbook? do you want to buy the 3rd edition in Spanish?"
    • Engineering-MD 5y ago
      Yeah, that sounds like a flaw in the methodology! And quite a funny one too.
  • Pick-A-Hill2019 5y ago
    One of the other things to consider* is that the details of person X that is looking to buy item Y are a snaphot at the time that information was brought/sold. When person X buys item Y from company Z, company Z is unlikely to broadcast that fact. Ergo, the 'system' doesn't know that you have now brought item Y and that you no longer have an active interest in purchasing Y. *Things may have changed in 20 years so the above is just an outdated observation based on a brief stint at a turn of the century B2B marketing start-up.
    • bquest2 5y ago
      This is partially the answer. Sometimes people are running ad blockers that block sending events to Facebook, so the "Item Purchased" event never gets sent, but the account was created with an email that can be used in custom audiences, so the email is retargeted as if they never purchased the thing. Or someone goofed and forgot to include the exclude "item purchased" event in the criteria
  • dboreham 5y ago
    These explanations come from delusional people. The real explanation is that targeting really doesn't exist in any useful form.
• worker767424 5y ago
  This is called retargeting. Aside from possible repeat purchases, my guess is that enough people browse a site or never complete their checkout that advertisers are happy to take the chance that 50% of people who see the ad might no longer be interested because that's still higher interest than you can get from almost any other channel.
  • somedude895 5y ago
    To add to that, the retargeting setup is mostly the job of the advertiser / agency, so it's not Facebook's fault when it's badly implemented. The advertiser often doesn't notice, because even terrible retargeting will usually perform really well.
• cerved 5y ago
  Retargeting typically has very favorable CPC (cost per click) and other "ROI" metrics that marketing managers use to determine the success of their advertising campaigns. This may conceivably be because having previously visited a website is a stronger indicator of interest than say, male 18-30 making $XYZ/yr. It may also be purely coincidental and garbage. You were going to buy anyway/you already bought it. The truth most often lies somewhere in-between. The statistic rigor of the people purchasing these ads is not always the highest. The companies offering these solutions typically have very little reason to not sell as many ads as possible, as long as the metrics look good. In the end consumers are blasted with stalking ads that they don't want and the entire industry is shooting itself in the foot
• dntrkv 5y ago
  > Not many success stories out there. Where are you getting your information? There are entire businesses built solely on top of FB/Insta/etc ads. I went 15+ years on the internet without buying anything from an ad, and then in the last 5, I've made at least 5 conscious, purchases from Insta ads. They've become really good in recent years.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• nemothekid 5y ago
  >The ones who buy adds? Not many success stories out there. It's hard to believe the economy is dumping almost 100B/year into a product that doesn't work.
  • skinkestek 5y ago
    Snake oil salespersons can sell to companies as well. Seing how massively even Google have mistargeted me and lots and lots of others I'm even sure it is a fluke anymore: AFAIK Google sells ads not by the click anymore but by the impression. Now, how do you maximize revenue? You show the most expensive ad to as many people as possible. A little (ok, a lot) of fudging here and there and I am a target demographic for shady dating sites / mail order brides / senior dating / gay cruises for 13 consecutive years. Was it ever relevant to me? No way. I even repeatedly reported those ads. Does relevant ads exist? As Facebook has proven a few times: yes. Did Google earn a lot from them? Probably yes.
  • jstx1 5y ago
    Freakonomics have a great episode on this - https://freakonomics.com/podcast/advertising-part-2/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/advertising-part-2/
• adrr 5y ago
  They don’t know you purchased it because it’s not commonly shared to ad networks unless they are making cohorts but that is usually done at the product category level. There are many success stories with ads. I’ve been involved with two exits that is all attributed to digital advertising. No where else do you get a ROAS in the double digits. Here is a good example of the difference. When I worked for a challenger bank. We paid under $75 per signup and $10 per app install. Chase and BOA pays $1200 per new customer in marketing expenses using traditional marketing channels.
• baq 5y ago
  they wouldn't do it if it didn't work. i'm not in the business but i think these kinds of ads work quite well if you return the thing you just bought.
  • Nicksil 5y ago
    >hey wouldn't do it if it didn't work. Now why would you go and think a thing like that?
    • baq 5y ago
      money, basically.
  • danaris 5y ago
    > they wouldn't do it if it didn't work. Citation needed.