> then that scenario does say that the market believes that the retargeting is more effective than 50% of the other ads I could have been shown. Yep, and again

> then that scenario does say that the market believes that the retargeting is more effective than 50% of the other ads I could have been shown. Yep, and again, that’s because you recently bought a mattress. This is likely not the case for the other 99.99% of people on the internet who have not recently bought a mattress online. Again, you’re mixing up the fact that a particular ad might be more effective for you at a particular time with the conclusion that all retargeting ads must be more effective than all other ads. > I assume that if other companies had the ability to have a salesperson walk up to me when I entered a mattress store and advertise to me on a competing store -- I think they'd probably jump at that opportunity. You think that a company that makes flotation devices for dogs would pay a full time salesperson to stand just outside the furniture store to make a pitch to you, given almost no data about your interest in dog life preservers? And likewise for the hundreds of thousands of other products in the world? Clearly that’s not the case. It’s very expensive to hire a salesperson, so you’re only going to see salespeople in places where they are likely to be very effective. If there were hypothetically an auction for the salesperson at that location, its almost certain that the furniture store would bid the highest.