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I still don't understand a lot of youtube advertising. Like for me, if I'm being advertised something, I instinctively don't trust it, because they're having to

I still don't understand a lot of youtube advertising. Like for me, if I'm being advertised something, I instinctively don't trust it, because they're having to pay people to say good things about it rather than people who have used it telling me it's a good thing. And there are still so many sponsorships from places like BetterHelp, which has been known to be a scam for a while now, and Raid Shadow Legends, which is just a crappy mobile game that is about as "mobile game" as you can get. The only reason I use onshape is because a friend recommended it to me, and I was very skeptical about it initially

freetonik 2y ago
I feel the same. The more I hear about a brand in youtube ads (or any ads, for that matter), the more "scammy" feeling I get about it. At this point I feel I won't even consider looking into NordVPN, Betterhelp, or SquareSpace, even though I understand how this feeling is unjustified.
- bugtodiffer 2y ago
  > I understand how this feeling is unjustified Every company you listed is bad. NordVPN wasn't caught yet, but it's to good to be true and ALWAYS having 73% off is illegal marketing. Betterhelp sold data to facebook to retarget you with ads. SquareSpace had a security issue were entering the email of an old, not yet migrated account, was instant account takeover... how does this slip through security reviews? Everything that needs my favorite minecraft youtuber to advertise it, is scam. It wouldn't sell without influencer marketing.
  - voidUpdate 2y ago
    The thing about nordVPN (and VPN services in general) is they always talk about how funneling all your traffic through them makes it more secure and it means that governments cant spy on you and whatever. But sending all your traffic through a single point of failure seems like a bad idea from a government protection view, and how is it any more secure than https? The only thing that I've seen it be good for is making it look like you're from somewhere else to watch different stuff on streaming services. I think Tom Scott put it well here https://youtu.be/WVDQEoe6ZWY https://youtu.be/WVDQEoe6ZWY
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      Most of what people use personal VPNs for is to break some rules, sometimes the law. Circumventing geofencing or content blocking is most likely against some terms of service. VPN services can't really advertise for this, so they talk about evil hackers.
      - schoen 2y ago
        I saw a couple of VPN promos recently where the sponsored YouTube presenter talked about geoblocking circumvention as an important VPN use case. I don't know whether the sponsor thought that was desirable or not (and also don't know whether the sponsor requested it or not).
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      The same can be said for folks using Clouflare or Google DNS.
    - wzdd 2y ago
      > how is it any more secure than https? Using a VPN doesn't expose the domain names you're viewing (via SNI) or the IP addresses you're connecting to to your ISP. It also (therefore) doesn't expose to the ISP the volume of traffic you're sending to a particular site, when you connect to it, or how long you stay there. Whether your ISP is part of the threat model you're interested in mitigating is up to you personally, but this is how, depending on that model, a VPN can be more secure than HTTPS.
      - voidUpdate 2y ago
        Instead it exposes them all to the VPN company instead. You've just moved the attack point to another company
        saywhanow 2y ago
        If I’m sailing the high seas and my ISP gets irritated, that’s a problem. If my VPN provider does, next.
Iulioh 2y ago
The hardest thing about selling something is making people aware or it's existence. So it's not really a bad bad thing. Said that, if i see that thing everywhere i can probably find a cheaper thing with the same quality because the marketing budget must be HUGE and these 10% discount codes give 10% to you and 10%the the creator so i can find a code 20% somewhere.
dkarras 2y ago
you're not the target. advertisements work. the people managing ads are very meticulous about their spend vs. return. if you are seeing an ad of something for any noticeable duration of time, that means it works. by that I mean they get positive return from showing the world their ad. if it generates negative returns, it will be pulled pretty quickly. they are humans just like you and me, we don't like losing money. also one should always be skeptical about the extent they believe they are not influenced by ads. that runs pretty deep. you say you instinctively don't trust it. but when the time comes to buy something, you won't automatically steer yourself towards a product that you have never heard before just because you have not seen an ad for it. having some names in your mind, even them showing up when you do research creates influence.
- fhd2 2y ago
  From my ad industry insights, that's only partly true. What you mentioned last is called brand advertising IIRC, which is not conversion oriented, but aimed at exposing you to a brand (like, a car manufacturer) so that at some point _later_ in your life, you contribute to a decision to buy from them. Now, huge companies do run focus groups and such to ensure their brand advertising has the right (psychological) effects. But it is inherently difficult to measure. And I've seen many mid-sized companies not do that at all, they run these ads based on what they believe might work. Mind you, this is experience from 4 years ago, but I did find the ad industry, as obsessed with tracking as it is, to be surprisingly gut-driven. For a lot of it, it's hard to tell if it works. I do fully agree that for people who know what they're doing, advertising absolutely works, in ways that are sometimes unintuitive to consumers.
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    > From my ad industry insights, that's only partly true. What you mentioned last is called brand advertising IIRC, which is not conversion oriented, but aimed at exposing you to a brand (like, a car manufacturer) so that at some point _later_ in your life, you contribute to a decision to buy from them. Top of funnel advertising is definitely conversion oriented, just on a longer timescale.
maccard 2y ago
I think you’d be surprised at how effective advertising is on you. An awful lot of it is brand familiarity. You mentioned some examples, but presumably you’ve seen more than three ads (not expecting you to list them). Square space is one provider that commonly does these kinds of placements and I can confirm that it’s an excellent product (albeit expensive). Where do you think your friend found out about onshape?
- voidUpdate 2y ago
  Sure, it makes me aware of brands, and then I don't use their service because they have to pay people to say it's good. And I already have a web hosting solution, its the raspberry pi in my closet. I've asked them but they may be asleep
  - matsemann 2y ago
    Ehh, if you go to buy a new car, will you buy a brand you've never heard of before? Or will you perhaps check out the brand you've seen ads for a hundred times in your life? It's not a conscious decision, your mind is familiar with some of the brands more than others, for whatever reason, and that tricks you into trust. Sure, you still might look into reviews and stuff, but your mind has already been primed to some extent in what brands you even consider.
    - voidUpdate 2y ago
      If I go to buy a new car, I'll look at the brands I have experience with, like what my friends and family drive. If I can actually see what its like and have people I trust endorse it, I'm more likely to support it
      - matsemann 2y ago
        And people subconsciously trust people they interact with often, like content creators whose videos you watch. Most people think they're above being influenced by ads, but they're not.
madaxe_again 2y ago
This makes you an outlier - and HN is the kind of place where you will find many such outliers. The majority of people, however, are extremely responsive to advertising & marketing, or it would not exist. My business used to be ecommerce platform development and consultancy, and I ended up seeing a lot of how the sausage is made - advertising is a bigger spend than product for most successful retailers, and it’s all about figuring out where to chop off the tail. You’ve got your core 15% who you can send an email to saying “buy this”, and they will, 95% of the time - then segments step down in terms of convertibility until you’re down to 0.01%, at which point you’re usually going to get more people irritated by the marketing than you will sales. The marginal cost of most marketing is very low - that’s to say, to reach 10,000,000 eyeballs doesn’t cost much more than to reach 10,000 - unless you’re doing paper catalogues, which is a whole other thing, most of your cost is up front, artwork, direction, whatever - so it makes sense to shoot for a bigger basket and get some bycatch. Me - I resolutely refused to do any marketing for our business. Mistake, bluntly, as I let my emotions get in the way of rationality. Had anyone other than a clique of medium-large UK merchants ever heard of us, the business might have gone somewhere - instead after a decade we were trundling along in a comfortable rut and I ejected. So, you hate it, I hate it, it’s misleading, it’s annoying, it’s a negative signal to us - but it works on most people.
- wzdd 2y ago
  > The majority of people, however, are extremely responsive to advertising & marketing, or it would not exist. This doesn't follow. Plenty of things are not effective for what they're claimed to do but still exist, have active communities of supporters, make lots of money for their practitioners, are a large part of popular culture, etc etc.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
I don't trust them either. The inherent conflicts of interest makes any advertising suspicious. They are guaranteed to be overstating the pros and understating the cons. "Sponsored segments" on youtube are nothing but normal advertising, they just permanently hardcoded the ads into the video instead. I don't like that they use the word "sponsors" for that. Sponsorships can be an ethical way to make money. Think Patreon, GitHub Sponsors.
- schoen 2y ago
  It might be a noncentral example of sponsorship, but it's been a traditional usage since the early days of television: "and now, a word from our sponsor". Edit: actually, I think that phrasing arose in the early days of radio!
ctm92 2y ago
It's to get people to remember the name. What first comes to your mind when you are in need of a website builder? Squarespace. Want to make some PCBs? JLCPCB
- voidUpdate 2y ago
  apache2/html/css, and I'm a little sceptical about pcbway/jlcpcb because the shipping times are nuts. I know its because they're coming from china but it makes me want to etch my own PCBs instead I now sort of want to see a video about PCB etching sponsored by either of those because it would make me laugh from the contradiction
  - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
    The next project I build I want to try one of these services. The idea of a one-off PCB is pretty cool.
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago
  My YouTube echo chamber directs me to pcbway. JLCPCB is clearly targeting a lower quality YouTube audience as I only watch sophisticated content creators whose stunning intellect make me feel comfortable in the products they endorse. I suggest you avoid JLCPCB on these grounds alone. /s… at least I think :-)
Ekaros 2y ago
I am starting to think that these companies aim for saturation of mindshare. Like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and such. This bombarding is there for you to remember the name of the company. And then when you are ready to purchase either go for it or try to find some sponsored segment again for that discount. Individual conversions are less important than the long term mindshare.
cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
The easiest people to advertise to are HN knowitalls that consider themselves infallible, completely logical beings. Advertising works on you. You’re just, at best, describing a scenario where you aren’t being advertised things that you currently find appealing. You’re currently on a social network that’s basically just YC’s advertising board.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  That's a quippy response I've heard here before, but it doesn't check out. You, without any knowledge of my personal experience, are asserting that everything I know about my experience is wrong and I am deceiving myself by thinking I know anything about myself. But in truth, this is nothing more than your attempt to deceive me, plain and simple gas-lighting. > You’re currently on a social network that’s basically just YC’s advertising board. If that's the sum of your proof, your thesis is a joke. I am not the customer of any YC company, nor have I ever applied for a job at one, nor have I ever or will I ever apply to YC itself. Your attempt to cold read me was pathetic.
  - carbotaniuman 2y ago
    But you've heard of YC :P
joseda-hg 2y ago
Advertising being so lucrative and Implicit endorsement being what it is (plus opportunity cost) means that any public person recommendation might as well be treated as advertisement, so you may only trust the advice of those you know directly That's probably for the better, but it also means that you'll have blindsposts
theshrike79 2y ago
Influencer marketing works so well on the younger generations that it's scary. Just look at Prime. It's just a generic crappy sports drink and kids were literally paying 10-15€/bottle for it during the worst hype times because supplies were so short.
richardreeze 2y ago
I hear you, but I still bought those Feastable chocolate bars...
crosser12 2y ago
[dead]

freetonik 2y ago

I feel the same. The more I hear about a brand in youtube ads (or any ads, for that matter), the more "scammy" feeling I get about it. At this point I feel I won't even consider looking into NordVPN, Betterhelp, or SquareSpace, even though I understand how this feeling is unjustified.

bugtodiffer 2y ago
> I understand how this feeling is unjustified Every company you listed is bad. NordVPN wasn't caught yet, but it's to good to be true and ALWAYS having 73% off is illegal marketing. Betterhelp sold data to facebook to retarget you with ads. SquareSpace had a security issue were entering the email of an old, not yet migrated account, was instant account takeover... how does this slip through security reviews? Everything that needs my favorite minecraft youtuber to advertise it, is scam. It wouldn't sell without influencer marketing.
- voidUpdate 2y ago
  The thing about nordVPN (and VPN services in general) is they always talk about how funneling all your traffic through them makes it more secure and it means that governments cant spy on you and whatever. But sending all your traffic through a single point of failure seems like a bad idea from a government protection view, and how is it any more secure than https? The only thing that I've seen it be good for is making it look like you're from somewhere else to watch different stuff on streaming services. I think Tom Scott put it well here https://youtu.be/WVDQEoe6ZWY https://youtu.be/WVDQEoe6ZWY
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    Most of what people use personal VPNs for is to break some rules, sometimes the law. Circumventing geofencing or content blocking is most likely against some terms of service. VPN services can't really advertise for this, so they talk about evil hackers.
    - schoen 2y ago
      I saw a couple of VPN promos recently where the sponsored YouTube presenter talked about geoblocking circumvention as an important VPN use case. I don't know whether the sponsor thought that was desirable or not (and also don't know whether the sponsor requested it or not).
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    The same can be said for folks using Clouflare or Google DNS.
  - wzdd 2y ago
    > how is it any more secure than https? Using a VPN doesn't expose the domain names you're viewing (via SNI) or the IP addresses you're connecting to to your ISP. It also (therefore) doesn't expose to the ISP the volume of traffic you're sending to a particular site, when you connect to it, or how long you stay there. Whether your ISP is part of the threat model you're interested in mitigating is up to you personally, but this is how, depending on that model, a VPN can be more secure than HTTPS.
    - voidUpdate 2y ago
      Instead it exposes them all to the VPN company instead. You've just moved the attack point to another company
      - saywhanow 2y ago
        If I’m sailing the high seas and my ISP gets irritated, that’s a problem. If my VPN provider does, next.

Iulioh 2y ago

The hardest thing about selling something is making people aware or it's existence. So it's not really a bad bad thing. Said that, if i see that thing everywhere i can probably find a cheaper thing with the same quality because the marketing budget must be HUGE and these 10% discount codes give 10% to you and 10%the the creator so i can find a code 20% somewhere.

dkarras 2y ago

you're not the target. advertisements work. the people managing ads are very meticulous about their spend vs. return. if you are seeing an ad of something for any noticeable duration of time, that means it works. by that I mean they get positive return from showing the world their ad. if it generates negative returns, it will be pulled pretty quickly. they are humans just like you and me, we don't like losing money. also one should always be skeptical about the extent they believe they are not influenced by ads. that runs pretty deep. you say you instinctively don't trust it. but when the time comes to buy something, you won't automatically steer yourself towards a product that you have never heard before just because you have not seen an ad for it. having some names in your mind, even them showing up when you do research creates influence.

fhd2 2y ago
From my ad industry insights, that's only partly true. What you mentioned last is called brand advertising IIRC, which is not conversion oriented, but aimed at exposing you to a brand (like, a car manufacturer) so that at some point _later_ in your life, you contribute to a decision to buy from them. Now, huge companies do run focus groups and such to ensure their brand advertising has the right (psychological) effects. But it is inherently difficult to measure. And I've seen many mid-sized companies not do that at all, they run these ads based on what they believe might work. Mind you, this is experience from 4 years ago, but I did find the ad industry, as obsessed with tracking as it is, to be surprisingly gut-driven. For a lot of it, it's hard to tell if it works. I do fully agree that for people who know what they're doing, advertising absolutely works, in ways that are sometimes unintuitive to consumers.
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  > From my ad industry insights, that's only partly true. What you mentioned last is called brand advertising IIRC, which is not conversion oriented, but aimed at exposing you to a brand (like, a car manufacturer) so that at some point _later_ in your life, you contribute to a decision to buy from them. Top of funnel advertising is definitely conversion oriented, just on a longer timescale.

maccard 2y ago

I think you’d be surprised at how effective advertising is on you. An awful lot of it is brand familiarity. You mentioned some examples, but presumably you’ve seen more than three ads (not expecting you to list them). Square space is one provider that commonly does these kinds of placements and I can confirm that it’s an excellent product (albeit expensive). Where do you think your friend found out about onshape?

voidUpdate 2y ago
Sure, it makes me aware of brands, and then I don't use their service because they have to pay people to say it's good. And I already have a web hosting solution, its the raspberry pi in my closet. I've asked them but they may be asleep
- matsemann 2y ago
  Ehh, if you go to buy a new car, will you buy a brand you've never heard of before? Or will you perhaps check out the brand you've seen ads for a hundred times in your life? It's not a conscious decision, your mind is familiar with some of the brands more than others, for whatever reason, and that tricks you into trust. Sure, you still might look into reviews and stuff, but your mind has already been primed to some extent in what brands you even consider.
  - voidUpdate 2y ago
    If I go to buy a new car, I'll look at the brands I have experience with, like what my friends and family drive. If I can actually see what its like and have people I trust endorse it, I'm more likely to support it
    - matsemann 2y ago
      And people subconsciously trust people they interact with often, like content creators whose videos you watch. Most people think they're above being influenced by ads, but they're not.

madaxe_again 2y ago

This makes you an outlier - and HN is the kind of place where you will find many such outliers. The majority of people, however, are extremely responsive to advertising & marketing, or it would not exist. My business used to be ecommerce platform development and consultancy, and I ended up seeing a lot of how the sausage is made - advertising is a bigger spend than product for most successful retailers, and it’s all about figuring out where to chop off the tail. You’ve got your core 15% who you can send an email to saying “buy this”, and they will, 95% of the time - then segments step down in terms of convertibility until you’re down to 0.01%, at which point you’re usually going to get more people irritated by the marketing than you will sales. The marginal cost of most marketing is very low - that’s to say, to reach 10,000,000 eyeballs doesn’t cost much more than to reach 10,000 - unless you’re doing paper catalogues, which is a whole other thing, most of your cost is up front, artwork, direction, whatever - so it makes sense to shoot for a bigger basket and get some bycatch. Me - I resolutely refused to do any marketing for our business. Mistake, bluntly, as I let my emotions get in the way of rationality. Had anyone other than a clique of medium-large UK merchants ever heard of us, the business might have gone somewhere - instead after a decade we were trundling along in a comfortable rut and I ejected. So, you hate it, I hate it, it’s misleading, it’s annoying, it’s a negative signal to us - but it works on most people.

wzdd 2y ago
> The majority of people, however, are extremely responsive to advertising & marketing, or it would not exist. This doesn't follow. Plenty of things are not effective for what they're claimed to do but still exist, have active communities of supporters, make lots of money for their practitioners, are a large part of popular culture, etc etc.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

I don't trust them either. The inherent conflicts of interest makes any advertising suspicious. They are guaranteed to be overstating the pros and understating the cons. "Sponsored segments" on youtube are nothing but normal advertising, they just permanently hardcoded the ads into the video instead. I don't like that they use the word "sponsors" for that. Sponsorships can be an ethical way to make money. Think Patreon, GitHub Sponsors.

schoen 2y ago
It might be a noncentral example of sponsorship, but it's been a traditional usage since the early days of television: "and now, a word from our sponsor". Edit: actually, I think that phrasing arose in the early days of radio!

ctm92 2y ago

It's to get people to remember the name. What first comes to your mind when you are in need of a website builder? Squarespace. Want to make some PCBs? JLCPCB

voidUpdate 2y ago
apache2/html/css, and I'm a little sceptical about pcbway/jlcpcb because the shipping times are nuts. I know its because they're coming from china but it makes me want to etch my own PCBs instead I now sort of want to see a video about PCB etching sponsored by either of those because it would make me laugh from the contradiction
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago
  The next project I build I want to try one of these services. The idea of a one-off PCB is pretty cool.
cruffle_duffle 2y ago
My YouTube echo chamber directs me to pcbway. JLCPCB is clearly targeting a lower quality YouTube audience as I only watch sophisticated content creators whose stunning intellect make me feel comfortable in the products they endorse. I suggest you avoid JLCPCB on these grounds alone. /s… at least I think :-)

Ekaros 2y ago

I am starting to think that these companies aim for saturation of mindshare. Like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and such. This bombarding is there for you to remember the name of the company. And then when you are ready to purchase either go for it or try to find some sponsored segment again for that discount. Individual conversions are less important than the long term mindshare.

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago

The easiest people to advertise to are HN knowitalls that consider themselves infallible, completely logical beings. Advertising works on you. You’re just, at best, describing a scenario where you aren’t being advertised things that you currently find appealing. You’re currently on a social network that’s basically just YC’s advertising board.

lupusreal 2y ago
That's a quippy response I've heard here before, but it doesn't check out. You, without any knowledge of my personal experience, are asserting that everything I know about my experience is wrong and I am deceiving myself by thinking I know anything about myself. But in truth, this is nothing more than your attempt to deceive me, plain and simple gas-lighting. > You’re currently on a social network that’s basically just YC’s advertising board. If that's the sum of your proof, your thesis is a joke. I am not the customer of any YC company, nor have I ever applied for a job at one, nor have I ever or will I ever apply to YC itself. Your attempt to cold read me was pathetic.
- carbotaniuman 2y ago
  But you've heard of YC :P

joseda-hg 2y ago

Advertising being so lucrative and Implicit endorsement being what it is (plus opportunity cost) means that any public person recommendation might as well be treated as advertisement, so you may only trust the advice of those you know directly That's probably for the better, but it also means that you'll have blindsposts

theshrike79 2y ago

Influencer marketing works so well on the younger generations that it's scary. Just look at Prime. It's just a generic crappy sports drink and kids were literally paying 10-15€/bottle for it during the worst hype times because supplies were so short.

richardreeze 2y ago

I hear you, but I still bought those Feastable chocolate bars...

crosser12 2y ago

[dead]