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> It's not surprising I'm not sure we're disagreeing? It's not surprising, but it does show that the sophisticated ML-based targeting system is less effective

> It's not surprising I'm not sure we're disagreeing? It's not surprising, but it does show that the sophisticated ML-based targeting system is less effective then promised. That doesn't really need to be a shocking conclusion, but it does generally support what the author says in the linked article. We seem to be agreeing on that point, it's not surprising that retargets outperform any sophisticated model, and the only reason it's worth bringing up is that all of this data collection has been sold to consumers based on the idea that it was going to be a wildly effective revolution in how products got sold, and that pervasive data collection was the only way that revolution could work. I still want to loop back around to the idea that advertising is itself sold to consumers as a social benefit. A non-surprising outcome that shows lots of people terribly targeted ads but manages to increase ROI is still not delivering on that consumer promise, and it's not clear why consumers should be willing to give up their private data to support that kind of a system. > What's important to note is that the ad publisher is most likely showing orders of magnitude more impressions of the latter type than of the former. For each individual publisher, sure, I guess... but again, I'm talking about the market overall. If the majority of ads that most people are seeing are retargets, then that says something about the market. The denominator is all of the ads being seen across the entire market, not the ads that each individual company is showing. I'm having a really hard time following your math. I actually got curious enough about this that I threw together a couple of programmed simulations, and maybe I'm modeling the system wrong, but I can't get the math the work out in your favor for any of them. If the average company is only sending out 10% retargets, then across the entire market the average consumer should only see 10% retargets. There could be a lot of variance, but it can't be a common experience -- it has to eventually even out when you look at the market overall. In other words, if there are actually orders of magnitude more ads going out to new users who are unfamiliar with the products being advertised, then some users should be getting all of these ads for new products. So if everyone in the room notices retargets to this degree (and in my experience this is an extremely common sentiment among people when you talk to them about ads) -- then where are the orders of magnitude of other impressions going? Who is seeing them? Those ads can't be going into the void, there should be some people jumping into these conversations saying "I rarely get retargets, most of my ads are for new things." Unless you want to try and make the point that it's all just a Baader–Meinhof phenomenon and we don't have a lot of retargeted ads in the first place. But I think that's a very different argument than "keep the denominator in mind." On the note of Baader-Meinhof phenomenons, I do want to again keep referring back to a consumer point-of-view in this conversation, because the article is specifically about the consumer experience and whether these ad targeting systems have any benefit for consumers. It's worth noting that a system where consumers only see 10% of their ads as constant retargets for things they already have bought might still be too repetitive for them. I think it's hard to get away from the fact that complaining about retargets is extremely common, so independent of everything else, we know the system is targeting those people too much simply because they notice it and dislike it. It may increase ROI for the company, but (again) the question is why consumers should consent to give up their privacy for systems that seem to be annoying them. ROI is not a good enough reason for me to give up my privacy, this isn't a charity. And you don't need >50% retargets to hit that threshold of annoyance where the system can be judged bad, it just needs to be a big enough percentage that consumers notice it and get irritated about it.

tshaddox 5y ago
> It's not surprising, but it does show that the sophisticated ML-based targeting system is less effective then promised. We agree that it isn't surprising, but I don't think this says almost anything at all about how sophisticated or effective the systems are that target the general population who has probably not heard of your product. That would be like walking into a furniture store, and when a salesperson approaches you to attempt to sell you something, you conclude that their ML-targeted online ad campaigns must not be effective. There is no evidence whatsoever that their online ad campaigns aren't effective for targeting the audience they intend to target. You're being targeted by a different type of advertising not because online ads didn't work, but because you happen to be in a tiny cohort of people currently standing inside a store, and therefore can be targeted using a much less sophisticated system. > I still want to loop back around to the idea that advertising is itself sold to consumers as a social benefit. I certainly don't believe that advertising is necessarily a social benefit, but that isn't relevant to the point I'm making, which is about the effectiveness of ads from the ad publisher's perspective. > For each individual publisher, sure, I guess... but again, I'm talking about the market overall. If the majority of ads that most people are seeing are retargets, then that says something about the market. But you haven't mentioned any evidence or observations about the market overall. The fact that you receive mattress ads after buying a mattress online tells you essentially nothing about the entire market. I suspect it's unlikely that the majority of ads that most people see are retargets (although even if they are, that still doesn't contradict the point I'm making). > If the average company is only sending out 10% retargets, then across the entire market the average consumer should only see 10% retargets. The key here is that the distribution of ad impressions shown to each person probably has extremely high variance, and a very high portion of impressions probably cannot be identified with a valuable retargetable online purchase. If you frequently see a large portion of retargets you are probably nowhere near the average. > Unless you want to try and make the point that it's all just a Baader–Meinhof phenomenon and we don't have a lot of retargeted ads in the first place. Indeed, I did make that point somewhere in this thread. I also suspect a significant portion of the complaints about retargeted ads are due to frequency illusion. But even if that's not the case, my argument still applies.
- danShumway 5y ago

tshaddox 5y ago

> It's not surprising, but it does show that the sophisticated ML-based targeting system is less effective then promised. We agree that it isn't surprising, but I don't think this says almost anything at all about how sophisticated or effective the systems are that target the general population who has probably not heard of your product. That would be like walking into a furniture store, and when a salesperson approaches you to attempt to sell you something, you conclude that their ML-targeted online ad campaigns must not be effective. There is no evidence whatsoever that their online ad campaigns aren't effective for targeting the audience they intend to target. You're being targeted by a different type of advertising not because online ads didn't work, but because you happen to be in a tiny cohort of people currently standing inside a store, and therefore can be targeted using a much less sophisticated system. > I still want to loop back around to the idea that advertising is itself sold to consumers as a social benefit. I certainly don't believe that advertising is necessarily a social benefit, but that isn't relevant to the point I'm making, which is about the effectiveness of ads from the ad publisher's perspective. > For each individual publisher, sure, I guess... but again, I'm talking about the market overall. If the majority of ads that most people are seeing are retargets, then that says something about the market. But you haven't mentioned any evidence or observations about the market overall. The fact that you receive mattress ads after buying a mattress online tells you essentially nothing about the entire market. I suspect it's unlikely that the majority of ads that most people see are retargets (although even if they are, that still doesn't contradict the point I'm making). > If the average company is only sending out 10% retargets, then across the entire market the average consumer should only see 10% retargets. The key here is that the distribution of ad impressions shown to each person probably has extremely high variance, and a very high portion of impressions probably cannot be identified with a valuable retargetable online purchase. If you frequently see a large portion of retargets you are probably nowhere near the average. > Unless you want to try and make the point that it's all just a Baader–Meinhof phenomenon and we don't have a lot of retargeted ads in the first place. Indeed, I did make that point somewhere in this thread. I also suspect a significant portion of the complaints about retargeted ads are due to frequency illusion. But even if that's not the case, my argument still applies.

danShumway 5y ago