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Many here already pointed at the fact that likely P(buying mattress in the future|googled mattress) is much higher than P(buying mattress in the future) thus f

Many here already pointed at the fact that likely P(buying mattress in the future|googled mattress) is much higher than P(buying mattress in the future) thus for an advertiser with a finite budget it makes perfect sense to target users who googled mattress irrespective of whether they bought it already or not.

Kapura 3y ago
The author's point is that, with the data available to the platform owners, they could easily deduce the subset where that P value is nearly zero (having already bought the mattress). Places that would also make sense to advertise mattresses: around universities and dense rental housing, or new developments of single family houses. I required no spy networks to make this list.
- tcbawo 3y ago
  It seems that P(returning a bought mattress) is more than 10%, so it probably makes sense to continue advertising to those people. Also, there are probably people who buy multiple mattresses (eg. parents), that might buy a second mattress.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - prepend 3y ago
    The point of the article is that platforms know that both your examples aren’t true. The author isn’t a parent and isn’t in the market for buying a second mattress or returning. I think the issue is that the platforms don’t want to actually target, they just want to pretend and allow for the narrative for why. I would expect that the search pattern of multiple mattress buyers is very different than single (ie, single searches and buys one and stops searching; multiple searches, buys one, keeps searching). And for returners have identifiable patterns (ie, searches, buys, searches for “how to return”). Remember that google knows pretty much every single search you run and every page you visit and every checkout you complete successfully (if you’re using chrome).
- majormajor 3y ago
  > The author's point is that, with the data available to the platform owners, they could easily deduce the subset where that P value is nearly zero (having already bought the mattress). Let's think carefully before we argue that Google and Facebook should expose (indirectly or not) even more of the information they collect to third parties.
passion__desire 3y ago
Isn't it the case that you can't target specific individuals. Only big group sizes are allowed to be targetted through their portals.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
It only makes sense if you consider that the end all be all to target your customer. Maybe late night television ads are even more effective than google searches, because they are cheaper than prime time slots and are perhaps enriched for people with poor sleep. Maybe right now some subreddit is shilling mattress penny stocks and that is masking the true signal from your internet search data. You have no way of knowing that though, because you’ve reduced all of reality down to a single factor, an internet search, without considering how much of the observed variance could even be explained by this factor nor how the results might be confounded with other factors.

Kapura 3y ago

The author's point is that, with the data available to the platform owners, they could easily deduce the subset where that P value is nearly zero (having already bought the mattress). Places that would also make sense to advertise mattresses: around universities and dense rental housing, or new developments of single family houses. I required no spy networks to make this list.

tcbawo 3y ago
It seems that P(returning a bought mattress) is more than 10%, so it probably makes sense to continue advertising to those people. Also, there are probably people who buy multiple mattresses (eg. parents), that might buy a second mattress.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- prepend 3y ago
  The point of the article is that platforms know that both your examples aren’t true. The author isn’t a parent and isn’t in the market for buying a second mattress or returning. I think the issue is that the platforms don’t want to actually target, they just want to pretend and allow for the narrative for why. I would expect that the search pattern of multiple mattress buyers is very different than single (ie, single searches and buys one and stops searching; multiple searches, buys one, keeps searching). And for returners have identifiable patterns (ie, searches, buys, searches for “how to return”). Remember that google knows pretty much every single search you run and every page you visit and every checkout you complete successfully (if you’re using chrome).
majormajor 3y ago
> The author's point is that, with the data available to the platform owners, they could easily deduce the subset where that P value is nearly zero (having already bought the mattress). Let's think carefully before we argue that Google and Facebook should expose (indirectly or not) even more of the information they collect to third parties.

passion__desire 3y ago

Isn't it the case that you can't target specific individuals. Only big group sizes are allowed to be targetted through their portals.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

It only makes sense if you consider that the end all be all to target your customer. Maybe late night television ads are even more effective than google searches, because they are cheaper than prime time slots and are perhaps enriched for people with poor sleep. Maybe right now some subreddit is shilling mattress penny stocks and that is masking the true signal from your internet search data. You have no way of knowing that though, because you’ve reduced all of reality down to a single factor, an internet search, without considering how much of the observed variance could even be explained by this factor nor how the results might be confounded with other factors.