8 ms·

Someone who runs a startup here. Marketing has become so congested on the same platforms that most people are becoming “sign blind” to all of it. Anything squee

Someone who runs a startup here. Marketing has become so congested on the same platforms that most people are becoming “sign blind” to all of it. Anything squeezing my boarders on my mobile or desktop sites just causes my eyes to look for the “X” button. Older clients I work with in large industries don’t trust or click on any of it, and their company blue coat filters stop you if you accidentally do. Marketing isn’t all bad. But if your answer to spreading the word about you product comes down to spending money on banner ads, pop ups, or anything else that would annoy you away from looking at your own product…

no_wizard 4y ago
would you say so called "influencer" / "creator" marketing is more valuable nowadays as a result? Getting people behind you who have a trusted audience seems like the only way to combat this problem, I just don't know that its a serviceable business per se?
- WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
  I still can't wrap my head around the fact that people are actually "influenced" by influencers. I have never trusted anyone and anything. When it comes to spend MY MONEY I do my own research, period.
  - seibelj 4y ago
    Yeah but if you like Shaq and he tweets “hey this basketball is the best one I tried” then some fraction of his followers will just trust Shaq on the theory he wouldn’t hurt his reputation. Why not buy the Shaq ball?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      because his last 80 products were kind of shit
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Because he hasn't played in years and whatever ball he used was the official nba ball at the time. Most people would buy the official ball not a random ball. If you are talking shoes then people will buy to be associated with that player.
    - WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
      Because he ads that basketball because he is being payed to do so.
  - extropy 4y ago
    Your time and mental effort are limited. And your own research is not that effective in areas you have little working experience. In my experience a lot of older people (40+) increasingly rely on advice/influencers to drive their product decisions.
  - pempem 4y ago
    Thats a wonderful thing but I think you know its quite rare. Influencing is nothing new though the medium change has allowed for a preponderance of people to become influencers to smaller and smaller networks, we've always relied on proxy information if only on where to start research. It applied to the clothes we choose, the movies of which we might consume the trailers and then reject, the research we do. The universe of awesomeness and crap which we create as a species is multitudes larger than any person could just navigate via pure first order research. We all need signposts. While I abhor marketing and think hard about how to avoid or reduce its impact on me, its just not fully avoidable.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    That's because you have the antibodies. The people who closely follow influencers and who do not realize what the influencers are doing to them, lack those antibodies. This is a sad time to be a person who browses the internet without any jadedness or paranoia.
  - krapp 4y ago
    >I have never trusted anyone and anything. When it comes to spend MY MONEY I do my own research, period. ...so you're "influenced" by whatever sources you research, which means, having reached any conclusion at all, you trust at least some of them.
    - WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
      I trust my judgement based on all the information I have gathered. Then I check with friends and people that I trust, certainly not the random dude on youtube that ads the best blender 2022.
  - nonameiguess 4y ago
    What does your research consist of? When Steve from GamersNexus posts a video of him benchmarking a bunch of different cases with temperature gauges and the exact same internal hardware and workloads to tell me which one cools the best, I can try to independently reproduce those results myself, but that requires purchasing all of the cases, so there is no gain there. If he turns out to have been lying, I lost the money anyway.
  - liber8 4y ago
    I genuinely can't tell if this is satire or not. Assuming it's not, unless your "own research" consists of actually buying a wide swath of competing products and testing them against each other, then at some point you are indeed relying on "influencers", whether those influencers are Consumer Reports, Amazon reviews, your parents/neighbors/friends, etc.
    - WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
      I might trust Consumer Reports, parents/neighbors/friends but not some random dude on youtube...
  - godshatter 4y ago
    When you watch people for cumulative hours, you get an idea of who they are. You get a feel for who is a normal Joe that gained an audience because of their passion for a topic and who is just someone following trends trying to gain follower just to gain followers. You also get an idea of whether or not they really know what a vpn is. If I see a product I've never heard of before advertised to me by someone I trust to some degree, I'll check it out. I almost never buy because I have years of shields built up to stop myself from buying crap at the drop if a hat, but there are occasions where I will buy if I like the product enough after researching it. Those times are rare, though. I don't watch videos from most people who could be described as "influencers", though. Mostly small creators who have an interesting take on something and are passionate about it.
    - dfxm12 4y ago
      When you watch people for cumulative hours, you get an idea of who they are. And you get an idea of their tastes & whether or not you share the same tastes. Back in the day, if Siskel & Ebert gave a film two thumbs up, I would probably go see it. Not because they were on the TV, not because of some credentials they may or may not have had, but because over time, I've found out that I generally liked the films they gave two thumbs up, and life is too short to "do my own research" on all the movies playing this weekend. Of course, this doesn't mean I would go out and buy a car if they were in the commercial for it, but I might have thought about getting a movie related product they hawked (microwavable popcorn? Special edition VHS/DVD? I dunno...).
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    Regarding doing own research I think this approach works for many products that are cheap to purchase. But, this approach fails badly when you have to purchase items that are expensive and one time purchase. How do I pick good washing machine? I can only purchase washing machine, or chimney, or smart TV only 1 time, so I can't do research unless I am determined to burn money. I do agree with influences. These guys can sway people and make people to purchase ersatz product and has ability to do shenanigans.I think people should be cognizant while watching "influencers".
  - achenatx 4y ago
    Have you never read something on here, then checked it out? What if paul graham recommends it? I guarantee people have influence over you, just not the hipster influencers you are thinking of.
  - jgurewitz 4y ago
    Where do you do your research?
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Absolutely. I still subconsciously reach for NordVPN because of how good internet historian is at plugging it. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiccjfD_3pHAp-f3aNlf94BXWVNXoqgn0 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiccjfD_3pHAp-f3aNlf94BXW...
  - aspenmayer 4y ago
    Internet Historian made better content for his Nord ads than many creators make for their main content.
- hi_im_miles 4y ago
  Trust is the biggest thing missing from most forms of advertisement. I know I will gladly check out a product that a YouTuber I enjoy recommends, but banner ads/prerolls/TV ads/etc feel like a scam reel.
  - hguant 4y ago
    This is huge. There's a YouTuber I've been following for a stupidly long time, and if he recommends something, or even is sponsored by someone, I'll check them out. Same thing with acoup.blog - if there's a book recommendation there, I'll check it out in a heartbeat. Why? Because they've spent a long time developing trust with their audience. The YouTuber has been absolutely brutal about products, and has been extremely open about how people have tried to influence him one way or another when he's doing reviews. The author of acoup.blog has similarly put a lot of work in establishing his bonafides, so when he says a work is good or important, I know what he means by that.
  - jgurewitz 4y ago
    There's a fun model I built once upon the level of monetization versus trust building activities a given YouTuber/influencer should do maximize monetization over any given time period. You can model the decay in audience trust per monetization.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I trust YouTubers (or whatever celebrity) even less than banner ads. I know a pharmacist on Instagram that quit being a pharmacist and started hawking health supplements in between semi useful posts, mixing bullshit with truth and trashing the credibility of their qualifications.
  - p1necone 4y ago
    I'll trust a product that a youtuber I like organically recommends. But I'd still not trust anything they "recommend" in a sponsored ad slot. The only way you can (legally) pay for the former as a business is indirectly, via investing money into making a decent product rather than advertising.
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  I have clicked on more banner ads (though few) about products I didn't know about, than I would ever be swayed by an "influencer", which is the new term for celebrity shill. Pop ups, however, have made me NOT buy products I would have otherwise be interested in, lol. But I'm a spiteful person. EDIT: I take some of that back, maybe. I do look at car experts on YouTube, and listen to their opinion. I guess they might be considered "Influencers". I was wrong.
- grumbel 4y ago
  I think that depends a lot on how that marketing is actually done. Just having an influencer read an ad text or insert a prerecorded segment feels just as annoying as regular ads, sometimes even more as there is no Skip-button or adBlock that can make it go away quickly. Actual products reviews, even when they are not all positiv, on the other side I find extremely effective. Same for behind-the-scenes video that show you how a product is made and tested. As what an ad should ideally do is really just show me that the product exist and what it can do. That's all I care about and that's what most regular ads completely fail at. Even if I go hunting for the actual websites of a product, they never contain the information I am looking for. I find it completely ridiculous how bad most ads are in that regard. I don't even expect much, size, photos from all angles, photos of stuff that's in the box. Really basic stuff. Most Youtuber's will include that in their unboxing and product reviews, companies very rarely do. Trust is important, but you don't just gain that by having popular influencer read your lies, you gain that by not lying in the first place. Few companies seem to realize that. That said, I am a sample size of one and other people will make purchase decisions differently.
  - EricE 4y ago
    >Even if I go hunting for the actual websites of a product, they never contain the information I am looking for. I find it completely ridiculous how bad most ads are in that regard. I don't even expect much, size, photos from all angles, photos of stuff that's in the box. Really basic stuff. Most Youtuber's will include that in their unboxing and product reviews, companies very rarely do. This! It's all about the basics!
  - boogies 4y ago
    > there is no Skip-button or adBlock that can make [sponsorship segments] go away quickly. There is! https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/
- Beltiras 4y ago
  It depends. I play MTG Arena. There's a slew of overlay apps that give you access to extraneous information. Best advertising dollars I've seen spent are Jim Davis's plugs of Untapped.gg. Not only is he using the app himself, he raves about it all the time. He's worth every penny they pay him. Tossing money blindly at influencers just because they have a following is not a good strategy, you still have to validate that it's a proper way of getting the right eyeballs on your product.
whimsicalism 4y ago
> Older clients I work with in large industries don’t trust or click on any of it, and their company blue coat filters stop you if you accidentally do. A small but significant proportion do click on any of it.
- groby_b 4y ago
  If that's your business plan, you should take a long hard look in the mirror though.
- bduerst 4y ago
  It also sounds like this person's startup is B2B, which has an entirely different set of advertising strategies than something consumer focused. Anything that involves clicks (display, search, social) are typically not the most effective advertising tactics when your buying decision makers number so few, but that doesn't rule out other advertising activities.
  - grantsch 4y ago
    B2B early stage companies selling a high ticket service/product need to be focused on sales activity. Ads are a distraction. It's the seemingly easy way out but there's no way out of selling early stage.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      You use ads in B2B to build leads, then you follow up with marketing/sales. Certainly you wont get a conversion with display ads, but on certain providers they can help feed into the start of your funnel.
      - Spooky23 4y ago
        Maybe. I’ve seen some pretty sophisticated campaigns targeting my employer, from local NPR underwriting to print and event sponsorship, all targeting a half dozen individuals. End of the day, the salesman and his relationships closed it. The marketing consultant made a lot of cash though.
dangerface 4y ago
Channel fit is a huge thing, if you are trying to sell a large ticket item like web servers via banners you are wasting your money, if you are trying to sell dog beds with banner ads on a pet forum you will be very profitable.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  I was looking up vintage race car prices recently (like the kind I'd only dream of affording) and saw a banner ad for an individual selling a collection of his. I clicked the ad thinking it would lead me to a website and it was just a phone number that my phone asked if I wanted to call! No info on what cars he had for sale, just his personal phone number. I wonder if he's ever made a sale through those ads. I considered calling to see what would happen but it was 3am
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
squeaky-clean 4y ago
I used to work in airfare marketing systems, one of our biggest sellers was Instagram ads with prices inserted into the ad graphic hourly. I have no clue what kind of person sees an ad for "cheap flights to {destination}" and then clicks the ad and impulse-buys their tickets, but they exist. A surprisingly high number of them.
- eloff 4y ago
  Offer me a great price to anywhere warm in winter and I'd be one of those impulse buys.
- stevage 4y ago
  I think I have clicked that kind of ad. The situation would have been, I was thinking of booking tickets to X, I don't want to pay more than Y, sure I'll click and see if your tickets are as cheap as you say.
- ebiester 4y ago
  It's people like me who had it on their to-do list and it was a reminder to do it later.
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    Yeah but you didn't do it via the ad if I understand correctly. I would never ever do that, regardless of the price or any other fact. As mentioned above, I never click on them by principle, same as I never watch TV programs full of ads. Firefox with ublock origin blocks 95% of ads, for the rest I see if there is quick X to remove them or ignore them hard. If its too annoying I leave the page and go for competition. The best ad could theoretically achieve with person like me is that I would go to ie skyscanner and check current situation.
    - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
      But I think people at HN are the exception to how ads are used.
    - 4y ago
jgurewitz 4y ago
Law of shitty click through rates. https://www.google.com/amp/s/andrewchen.com/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/andrewchen.com/the-law-of-shitt... The best marketing comes from strong value props in an area people are open to hearing them. The magic of Facebook (and Google although now less so) is the ads are extremely relevant, to people who are open to hearing them. The backlash against ads is because they work, when done properly.
joshstrange 4y ago
> most people are becoming “sign blind” It's to the point now that I sometime miss content that I skipped over because I thought it was an ad. The worst case of this is opening a news article about something that happened on video and all I want to do is watch the video. Is it the top video? Rarely, I scroll right past that and look for something in the body. More than half the time it's a video that's in a tweet (thankfully easy enough to pick out) but sometimes I have to look closer at what I dismissed as an ad to find out if it's what I'm looking for. What's infuriating is when I go back to the top video, hit play, sit through an ad, then I get some generic news or computer-generated-type reading/text of the article in video form.
bromuro 4y ago
I actually don’t remember in my 25+ years on the internet to have ever clicked one of those ads. Now they are more invasive, as they appears masked as legit content - reddit, fb, instagram, and video games they force me to see ads. I was so disappointed when apps added ads on the iPhone to ger money! Such a scam.

no_wizard 4y ago

would you say so called "influencer" / "creator" marketing is more valuable nowadays as a result? Getting people behind you who have a trusted audience seems like the only way to combat this problem, I just don't know that its a serviceable business per se?

WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that people are actually "influenced" by influencers. I have never trusted anyone and anything. When it comes to spend MY MONEY I do my own research, period.
- seibelj 4y ago
  Yeah but if you like Shaq and he tweets “hey this basketball is the best one I tried” then some fraction of his followers will just trust Shaq on the theory he wouldn’t hurt his reputation. Why not buy the Shaq ball?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    because his last 80 products were kind of shit
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Because he hasn't played in years and whatever ball he used was the official nba ball at the time. Most people would buy the official ball not a random ball. If you are talking shoes then people will buy to be associated with that player.
  - WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
    Because he ads that basketball because he is being payed to do so.
- extropy 4y ago
  Your time and mental effort are limited. And your own research is not that effective in areas you have little working experience. In my experience a lot of older people (40+) increasingly rely on advice/influencers to drive their product decisions.
- pempem 4y ago
  Thats a wonderful thing but I think you know its quite rare. Influencing is nothing new though the medium change has allowed for a preponderance of people to become influencers to smaller and smaller networks, we've always relied on proxy information if only on where to start research. It applied to the clothes we choose, the movies of which we might consume the trailers and then reject, the research we do. The universe of awesomeness and crap which we create as a species is multitudes larger than any person could just navigate via pure first order research. We all need signposts. While I abhor marketing and think hard about how to avoid or reduce its impact on me, its just not fully avoidable.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  That's because you have the antibodies. The people who closely follow influencers and who do not realize what the influencers are doing to them, lack those antibodies. This is a sad time to be a person who browses the internet without any jadedness or paranoia.
- krapp 4y ago
  >I have never trusted anyone and anything. When it comes to spend MY MONEY I do my own research, period. ...so you're "influenced" by whatever sources you research, which means, having reached any conclusion at all, you trust at least some of them.
  - WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
    I trust my judgement based on all the information I have gathered. Then I check with friends and people that I trust, certainly not the random dude on youtube that ads the best blender 2022.
- nonameiguess 4y ago
  What does your research consist of? When Steve from GamersNexus posts a video of him benchmarking a bunch of different cases with temperature gauges and the exact same internal hardware and workloads to tell me which one cools the best, I can try to independently reproduce those results myself, but that requires purchasing all of the cases, so there is no gain there. If he turns out to have been lying, I lost the money anyway.
- liber8 4y ago
  I genuinely can't tell if this is satire or not. Assuming it's not, unless your "own research" consists of actually buying a wide swath of competing products and testing them against each other, then at some point you are indeed relying on "influencers", whether those influencers are Consumer Reports, Amazon reviews, your parents/neighbors/friends, etc.
  - WYepQ4dNnG 4y ago
    I might trust Consumer Reports, parents/neighbors/friends but not some random dude on youtube...
- godshatter 4y ago
  When you watch people for cumulative hours, you get an idea of who they are. You get a feel for who is a normal Joe that gained an audience because of their passion for a topic and who is just someone following trends trying to gain follower just to gain followers. You also get an idea of whether or not they really know what a vpn is. If I see a product I've never heard of before advertised to me by someone I trust to some degree, I'll check it out. I almost never buy because I have years of shields built up to stop myself from buying crap at the drop if a hat, but there are occasions where I will buy if I like the product enough after researching it. Those times are rare, though. I don't watch videos from most people who could be described as "influencers", though. Mostly small creators who have an interesting take on something and are passionate about it.
  - dfxm12 4y ago
    When you watch people for cumulative hours, you get an idea of who they are. And you get an idea of their tastes & whether or not you share the same tastes. Back in the day, if Siskel & Ebert gave a film two thumbs up, I would probably go see it. Not because they were on the TV, not because of some credentials they may or may not have had, but because over time, I've found out that I generally liked the films they gave two thumbs up, and life is too short to "do my own research" on all the movies playing this weekend. Of course, this doesn't mean I would go out and buy a car if they were in the commercial for it, but I might have thought about getting a movie related product they hawked (microwavable popcorn? Special edition VHS/DVD? I dunno...).
- cute_boi 4y ago
  Regarding doing own research I think this approach works for many products that are cheap to purchase. But, this approach fails badly when you have to purchase items that are expensive and one time purchase. How do I pick good washing machine? I can only purchase washing machine, or chimney, or smart TV only 1 time, so I can't do research unless I am determined to burn money. I do agree with influences. These guys can sway people and make people to purchase ersatz product and has ability to do shenanigans.I think people should be cognizant while watching "influencers".
- achenatx 4y ago
  Have you never read something on here, then checked it out? What if paul graham recommends it? I guarantee people have influence over you, just not the hipster influencers you are thinking of.
- jgurewitz 4y ago
  Where do you do your research?
sillysaurusx 4y ago
Absolutely. I still subconsciously reach for NordVPN because of how good internet historian is at plugging it. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiccjfD_3pHAp-f3aNlf94BXWVNXoqgn0 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiccjfD_3pHAp-f3aNlf94BXW...
- aspenmayer 4y ago
  Internet Historian made better content for his Nord ads than many creators make for their main content.
hi_im_miles 4y ago
Trust is the biggest thing missing from most forms of advertisement. I know I will gladly check out a product that a YouTuber I enjoy recommends, but banner ads/prerolls/TV ads/etc feel like a scam reel.
- hguant 4y ago
  This is huge. There's a YouTuber I've been following for a stupidly long time, and if he recommends something, or even is sponsored by someone, I'll check them out. Same thing with acoup.blog - if there's a book recommendation there, I'll check it out in a heartbeat. Why? Because they've spent a long time developing trust with their audience. The YouTuber has been absolutely brutal about products, and has been extremely open about how people have tried to influence him one way or another when he's doing reviews. The author of acoup.blog has similarly put a lot of work in establishing his bonafides, so when he says a work is good or important, I know what he means by that.
- jgurewitz 4y ago
  There's a fun model I built once upon the level of monetization versus trust building activities a given YouTuber/influencer should do maximize monetization over any given time period. You can model the decay in audience trust per monetization.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I trust YouTubers (or whatever celebrity) even less than banner ads. I know a pharmacist on Instagram that quit being a pharmacist and started hawking health supplements in between semi useful posts, mixing bullshit with truth and trashing the credibility of their qualifications.
- p1necone 4y ago
  I'll trust a product that a youtuber I like organically recommends. But I'd still not trust anything they "recommend" in a sponsored ad slot. The only way you can (legally) pay for the former as a business is indirectly, via investing money into making a decent product rather than advertising.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
I have clicked on more banner ads (though few) about products I didn't know about, than I would ever be swayed by an "influencer", which is the new term for celebrity shill. Pop ups, however, have made me NOT buy products I would have otherwise be interested in, lol. But I'm a spiteful person. EDIT: I take some of that back, maybe. I do look at car experts on YouTube, and listen to their opinion. I guess they might be considered "Influencers". I was wrong.
grumbel 4y ago
I think that depends a lot on how that marketing is actually done. Just having an influencer read an ad text or insert a prerecorded segment feels just as annoying as regular ads, sometimes even more as there is no Skip-button or adBlock that can make it go away quickly. Actual products reviews, even when they are not all positiv, on the other side I find extremely effective. Same for behind-the-scenes video that show you how a product is made and tested. As what an ad should ideally do is really just show me that the product exist and what it can do. That's all I care about and that's what most regular ads completely fail at. Even if I go hunting for the actual websites of a product, they never contain the information I am looking for. I find it completely ridiculous how bad most ads are in that regard. I don't even expect much, size, photos from all angles, photos of stuff that's in the box. Really basic stuff. Most Youtuber's will include that in their unboxing and product reviews, companies very rarely do. Trust is important, but you don't just gain that by having popular influencer read your lies, you gain that by not lying in the first place. Few companies seem to realize that. That said, I am a sample size of one and other people will make purchase decisions differently.
- EricE 4y ago
  >Even if I go hunting for the actual websites of a product, they never contain the information I am looking for. I find it completely ridiculous how bad most ads are in that regard. I don't even expect much, size, photos from all angles, photos of stuff that's in the box. Really basic stuff. Most Youtuber's will include that in their unboxing and product reviews, companies very rarely do. This! It's all about the basics!
- boogies 4y ago
  > there is no Skip-button or adBlock that can make [sponsorship segments] go away quickly. There is! https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/
Beltiras 4y ago
It depends. I play MTG Arena. There's a slew of overlay apps that give you access to extraneous information. Best advertising dollars I've seen spent are Jim Davis's plugs of Untapped.gg. Not only is he using the app himself, he raves about it all the time. He's worth every penny they pay him. Tossing money blindly at influencers just because they have a following is not a good strategy, you still have to validate that it's a proper way of getting the right eyeballs on your product.

whimsicalism 4y ago

> Older clients I work with in large industries don’t trust or click on any of it, and their company blue coat filters stop you if you accidentally do. A small but significant proportion do click on any of it.

groby_b 4y ago
If that's your business plan, you should take a long hard look in the mirror though.
bduerst 4y ago
It also sounds like this person's startup is B2B, which has an entirely different set of advertising strategies than something consumer focused. Anything that involves clicks (display, search, social) are typically not the most effective advertising tactics when your buying decision makers number so few, but that doesn't rule out other advertising activities.
- grantsch 4y ago
  B2B early stage companies selling a high ticket service/product need to be focused on sales activity. Ads are a distraction. It's the seemingly easy way out but there's no way out of selling early stage.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    You use ads in B2B to build leads, then you follow up with marketing/sales. Certainly you wont get a conversion with display ads, but on certain providers they can help feed into the start of your funnel.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      Maybe. I’ve seen some pretty sophisticated campaigns targeting my employer, from local NPR underwriting to print and event sponsorship, all targeting a half dozen individuals. End of the day, the salesman and his relationships closed it. The marketing consultant made a lot of cash though.

dangerface 4y ago

Channel fit is a huge thing, if you are trying to sell a large ticket item like web servers via banners you are wasting your money, if you are trying to sell dog beds with banner ads on a pet forum you will be very profitable.

squeaky-clean 4y ago
I was looking up vintage race car prices recently (like the kind I'd only dream of affording) and saw a banner ad for an individual selling a collection of his. I clicked the ad thinking it would lead me to a website and it was just a phone number that my phone asked if I wanted to call! No info on what cars he had for sale, just his personal phone number. I wonder if he's ever made a sale through those ads. I considered calling to see what would happen but it was 3am

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

squeaky-clean 4y ago

I used to work in airfare marketing systems, one of our biggest sellers was Instagram ads with prices inserted into the ad graphic hourly. I have no clue what kind of person sees an ad for "cheap flights to {destination}" and then clicks the ad and impulse-buys their tickets, but they exist. A surprisingly high number of them.

eloff 4y ago
Offer me a great price to anywhere warm in winter and I'd be one of those impulse buys.
stevage 4y ago
I think I have clicked that kind of ad. The situation would have been, I was thinking of booking tickets to X, I don't want to pay more than Y, sure I'll click and see if your tickets are as cheap as you say.
ebiester 4y ago
It's people like me who had it on their to-do list and it was a reminder to do it later.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  Yeah but you didn't do it via the ad if I understand correctly. I would never ever do that, regardless of the price or any other fact. As mentioned above, I never click on them by principle, same as I never watch TV programs full of ads. Firefox with ublock origin blocks 95% of ads, for the rest I see if there is quick X to remove them or ignore them hard. If its too annoying I leave the page and go for competition. The best ad could theoretically achieve with person like me is that I would go to ie skyscanner and check current situation.
  - bjelkeman-again 4y ago
    But I think people at HN are the exception to how ads are used.
  - 4y ago

jgurewitz 4y ago

Law of shitty click through rates. https://www.google.com/amp/s/andrewchen.com/the-law-of-shitty-clickthroughs/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/andrewchen.com/the-law-of-shitt... The best marketing comes from strong value props in an area people are open to hearing them. The magic of Facebook (and Google although now less so) is the ads are extremely relevant, to people who are open to hearing them. The backlash against ads is because they work, when done properly.

joshstrange 4y ago

> most people are becoming “sign blind” It's to the point now that I sometime miss content that I skipped over because I thought it was an ad. The worst case of this is opening a news article about something that happened on video and all I want to do is watch the video. Is it the top video? Rarely, I scroll right past that and look for something in the body. More than half the time it's a video that's in a tweet (thankfully easy enough to pick out) but sometimes I have to look closer at what I dismissed as an ad to find out if it's what I'm looking for. What's infuriating is when I go back to the top video, hit play, sit through an ad, then I get some generic news or computer-generated-type reading/text of the article in video form.

bromuro 4y ago

I actually don’t remember in my 25+ years on the internet to have ever clicked one of those ads. Now they are more invasive, as they appears masked as legit content - reddit, fb, instagram, and video games they force me to see ads. I was so disappointed when apps added ads on the iPhone to ger money! Such a scam.