4 ms·

This is the exact approach we're taking with EthicalAds (https://www.ethicalads.io/advertising-vision/#what-is-ethical-advertising https://www.ethicalads.io/adv

This is the exact approach we're taking with EthicalAds (https://www.ethicalads.io/advertising-vision/#what-is-ethical-advertising https://www.ethicalads.io/advertising-vision/#what-is-ethica...). We allow targeting by site content (keywords), and we've found that it works quite well (see our pricing for how this is marketed: https://www.ethicalads.io/advertisers/#pricing https://www.ethicalads.io/advertisers/#pricing). This post reminds me we need to write up a full blog post on how it works, and how we're seeing great results from it. We're trying to prove the model works, so always happy to have folks support us!

WalterBright 5y ago
This looks like a good initiative. May I suggest also providing a mechanism for the site owner to specify, on a per-page basis, the topic/category/etc for the ads. The site owner will know what their viewers are interested in more than any automated system. Also, some "negative" requirements, like "no batman, no toys, no games, no movies".
- dmix 5y ago
  This would assume a very wide amount of supply that could possibly fill the demand for said predefined niches. Plus all of the magic around cost, conversions, and other metrics that ad companies use to select ads for a site. As you noted even Amazon was showing the same C++ ad. This might be because it was all they had that was relevant (plus high spend out-competing others) and there wasn't enough other publishers paying to advertise books/products in other related categories. Just something to consider.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    It wasn't the C++ ad that was the problem in this case, as it was programming related. The problem was that same ad was run for every page every day. It wasn't long before I grew to hate it. The affiliate money from them is not enough to interest me. What does interest me is providing ads that my readers would like to see. Maybe I'm a unique snowflake, but relentlessly showing me the same ad makes me hate it. I don't listen to internet radio because each station runs the same 3 ads all day. I just can't stand it.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      The world's greatest invention was Tivo, so I no longer had to suffer decades of Cal Worthington and his goddamned Dog Spot any more. The second was car radios with a USB plug so I could plug in a stick of my music instead of ads-for-that-wretched-jewelry-store that I shall not name nor ever buy from. 40 years of those ads. barf.
- ericholscher 5y ago
  We already support the positive anyway: https://ethical-ad-client.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#configuration https://ethical-ad-client.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#configur... -- see `data-ea-keywords`.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    May I suggest a "categories" option. Ebay and Amazon have categories one can restrict searches to, for example. Just that will go a long way. Keywords tend to have multiple meanings, and advertisers won't really know what keywords to use to represent a particular category. For example, I'd like to specify "books and programming" so only ads that are for programming books would appear.
mdoms 5y ago
Based on the wording from your website it looks like it will suffer the exact problem GP is talking about. Can Ethical Ads reliably display ads for sim racing / gaming gear on a page about F1 2021 the game, and motorsport merch for a page about Formula 1 the sport? Don't rely on your algorithms. Let the page owner ultimately decide what gets advertised.
samizdis 5y ago
Looks like you EthicalAds folks are having an HN party atm - cf: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987650 Good luck to you and your endeavours ;-)
- ericholscher 5y ago
  Thanks!

WalterBright 5y ago

This looks like a good initiative. May I suggest also providing a mechanism for the site owner to specify, on a per-page basis, the topic/category/etc for the ads. The site owner will know what their viewers are interested in more than any automated system. Also, some "negative" requirements, like "no batman, no toys, no games, no movies".

dmix 5y ago
This would assume a very wide amount of supply that could possibly fill the demand for said predefined niches. Plus all of the magic around cost, conversions, and other metrics that ad companies use to select ads for a site. As you noted even Amazon was showing the same C++ ad. This might be because it was all they had that was relevant (plus high spend out-competing others) and there wasn't enough other publishers paying to advertise books/products in other related categories. Just something to consider.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  It wasn't the C++ ad that was the problem in this case, as it was programming related. The problem was that same ad was run for every page every day. It wasn't long before I grew to hate it. The affiliate money from them is not enough to interest me. What does interest me is providing ads that my readers would like to see. Maybe I'm a unique snowflake, but relentlessly showing me the same ad makes me hate it. I don't listen to internet radio because each station runs the same 3 ads all day. I just can't stand it.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The world's greatest invention was Tivo, so I no longer had to suffer decades of Cal Worthington and his goddamned Dog Spot any more. The second was car radios with a USB plug so I could plug in a stick of my music instead of ads-for-that-wretched-jewelry-store that I shall not name nor ever buy from. 40 years of those ads. barf.
ericholscher 5y ago
We already support the positive anyway: https://ethical-ad-client.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#configuration https://ethical-ad-client.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#configur... -- see `data-ea-keywords`.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  May I suggest a "categories" option. Ebay and Amazon have categories one can restrict searches to, for example. Just that will go a long way. Keywords tend to have multiple meanings, and advertisers won't really know what keywords to use to represent a particular category. For example, I'd like to specify "books and programming" so only ads that are for programming books would appear.

mdoms 5y ago

Based on the wording from your website it looks like it will suffer the exact problem GP is talking about. Can Ethical Ads reliably display ads for sim racing / gaming gear on a page about F1 2021 the game, and motorsport merch for a page about Formula 1 the sport? Don't rely on your algorithms. Let the page owner ultimately decide what gets advertised.

samizdis 5y ago

Looks like you EthicalAds folks are having an HN party atm - cf: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27987650 Good luck to you and your endeavours ;-)

ericholscher 5y ago
Thanks!