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Personalized ads are more effective than non-personalized ads, to try to argue that personalized ads are ineffective is incorrect and the "without any proof" cl

Personalized ads are more effective than non-personalized ads, to try to argue that personalized ads are ineffective is incorrect and the "without any proof" claim is absurd seeing the amount of specific data they collect on effectiveness measures. I used to work for ad tech companies and while that led me to hate them more than most people I'm not gonna say the data isn't their supporting their effectiveness. Edit: I'm not familiar with data on context based ads but I'm very skeptical they are significantly better in the general case. They are already used in things where it makes sense like when you're searching for something.

dartharva 1y ago
The "without any proof" part can be debunked even without the deep data, just looking at sales figures and conversion rates of personalized ads vs traditional "scatter-shot" approaches.
- jqpabc123 1y ago
  traditional "scatter-shot" approaches. Who are these folks doing this "scatter-shot" approach? How do we get some insight into their practices? The major company doing context sensitive advertising nowadays is Amazon. When you search on Amazon, they display relevant "sponsored" products that are clearly labeled as such. So how is Amazon's "context sensitive" advertising business doing? By most accounts, pretty good actually. https://www.campaignlive.com/article/amazons-ad-business-soars-reaching-us56-billion-2024/1905590 https://www.campaignlive.com/article/amazons-ad-business-soa... The real problem in my opinion is the lack of competition to the "personalized" approach. Everyone (except Amazon) just accepts "personalized" as the default --- mainly because there is no credible, large scale, organized, generally available alternative to compare it to.
  - hedora 1y ago
    There are smaller examples too. The Register was one such example the last time I checked. They sell space on articles and also run Sponsored Content features.
  - labcomputer 1y ago
    Amazon is not a good example of contextual ads, though. It doesn't generalize: 1. You can easily argue that these "context sensitive" ads are actually personalized ads: They're personalized based on the search query you just made! Amazon context ads are the same as Google/Apple App Store "context ads". Suppliers are paying for higher ranking. 2. It's a shopping website! Of course those context ads are going to have high ROI because they're showing an ad relevant to the thing you're shopping for! When people talk about context ads, they mean "Why doesn't Facebook or the local newspaper use context ads?" They don't mean "Why doesn't Target put up a coupon for beans in the beans aisle?"
  - glenstein 1y ago
    I don't think I want to argue againsr these ads on the basis that there's some alternative form of advertising that's more effective. The problem is with data mining and tracking and nudging behavior. I want the things driving my behavior to be originating from my own intentions or from my preferred sources of inspiration (e.g. friends, family, media I'm most interested in consuming.) You'll never be able to fully control the range of things that influence you, but you can still be intentional to a meaningful degree. For me that means supporting free and open source culture, and using subscription-based model rather than an ad-supported model for content. I'm not perfectly consistent but I am somewhat, and I think I'm operating from a coherent vision of what I believe my interests are, which is no small thing.
  - dartharva 1y ago
    Not an apples to apples comparison really. Amazon owns the entire user journey on its platform, which the "ads" are an integral part of. They are not analogous to Google showing you ads in banners and searches for target pages it doesn't own, on platforms it doesn't own. If you want to compare Google to those who actually advertise with the scatter-shot approach, you compare them with traditional advertising providers - ad spaces on TV & radio channels, billboard companies etc. That'd be a fair comparison because Google is also essentially a seller of ad spaces it "rents" from other websites - just in this case those ad spaces can simultaneously show different advertisements for different clients to each user, based on that user's best-match profile. It's a no-brainer that Google's approach will yield more leads.
SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
Was the issue trying to monetize your blog, or the way you did it? I assume the former.
unsungNovelty 1y ago
The entire podcast and youtube channel industry relies on contextual ads right? Havent almost everyone including MKBHD said youtube ads doesnt give them enough to be used as the only revenue. Contextual ads are more effective. You type shoes, you get shoes ads. It doesnt first need the shoe data and then later show shoe ads after you started searching for socks. And with no middlemen,more profitable. Duckduckgo employs this IIRC. Behavioural ads are easy cos you are setting up an api. Contextual ads would mean you need a worthy product and having to handle your ad folks yourself. You cannot buy a domain and immediately start showing ads. Behavioural ads breakeven because they sell your data. Not ads. The whole reason why new media outlets moved to subscription model is bizarre to me. They could've just started doing it old school and it would have made news open and more privacy friendly.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Of course e.g. MKBHD wants more ad revenue. To do so his only option is to put additional contextual ads as part of the video itself, so he does. MKBHD has no way to make a section of the video target individual viewers based on their history. YouTube does, so they do - because they know it makes them more money to do it that way.
  - unsungNovelty 1y ago
    Yes. It makes more money for the middle-man. Neither the advertisers nor user gets enough value. There are so many articles on why your FB or Google ads are not doing well. They show ads the way THEY can make money. Not value for you. This is theh same going when you use adwords.
- extra88 1y ago
  In-video sponsors are a form of contextual ad but ads inserted by YouTube are personalized (that doesn't mean context is not also a factor). Channels like MKBHD (and LTT) need more revenue than what they get from YouTube ads because their expenses have greatly increased, particularly staff. You can't automate contextual ads in news media, otherwise you get airline ads next to stories about airplane crashes. Or travel ads for places experiencing natural disasters or political upheaval. People pairing ads with stories increases the labor costs and there's already not enough money being paid for actual journalism to increase the cost of having ads.
hedora 1y ago
Behavioral ads transfer revenue away from publishers and to spam sites and the ad platform (google). Targeted ads are definitely better for the publisher, but hard to automate (the matchmaking between publishers and advertisers is less automated), but the percentage of ad spend that goes to the publisher is much higher, and the quality of each ad impression is higher. There’s some win for targeting on the margins, where there’s no good place to buy ads. Also, there’s an infinite inventory of targeted ad slots (like invisible windows displayed by malware or redirect spam), which could be better than display ads, where you might not be able to spend your marketing budget, at least in theory.
bee_rider 1y ago
I don’t have compelling evidence either way. But, I’d be a little skeptical of the data collected by the ad company. They are specifically and organization who’s entire skill-set includes convincing people to pay more, and that they might need some new service. I mean it isn’t some dirty secret, it is exactly what their value proposition is. The internal data you were viewing and the metrics they track are, in part, to show people and convince them to buy the ad service. That’s like pure uncut ad-guy ad-material.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  There is no grand conspiracy, the ad industry is massive, and advertising works. Companies would find out pretty quickly that advertising is a waste of money, yet here we are decades later and they still ad spend like crazy. It definitely works, and the more tailored the ads, the better they work. The key is remembering we are talking about average people, not nerdy techno anarchists with router level ad blocking and a pavolonian vomit reflex to seeing the word "sponsored".
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    It doesn’t require a grand conspiracy, just nobody deciding to rock the boat. It seems that when academics try to measure how effective the ads are, the effect sizes are much smaller than expected or it turns out the companies haven’t run any actual experiments. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-1-tv-ep-440/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w... https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w... > The key is remembering we are talking about average people, not nerdy techno anarchists with router level ad blocking and a pavolonian vomit reflex to seeing the word "sponsored". Sure, dump everyone who is skeptical of ads into this niche weird person case, and it makes it easier to ignore them. Have you actually talked to these “average people,” though? My experience has been that most people just find ads annoying.
    - qbit42 1y ago
glenstein 1y ago
>Personalized ads are more effective than non-personalized ads, to try to argue that personalized ads are ineffective is incorrect I basically agree with this. I think because people don't like personalized ads, there's a temptation to argue they don't work. But I think it's motivated reasoning in this case. And I actually think the argument against them is stronger when you acknowledge that they are more effective. The privacy issue goes hand in hand with the effect that ads collectively have to socialize people into consumer behaviors.

dartharva 1y ago

The "without any proof" part can be debunked even without the deep data, just looking at sales figures and conversion rates of personalized ads vs traditional "scatter-shot" approaches.

jqpabc123 1y ago
traditional "scatter-shot" approaches. Who are these folks doing this "scatter-shot" approach? How do we get some insight into their practices? The major company doing context sensitive advertising nowadays is Amazon. When you search on Amazon, they display relevant "sponsored" products that are clearly labeled as such. So how is Amazon's "context sensitive" advertising business doing? By most accounts, pretty good actually. https://www.campaignlive.com/article/amazons-ad-business-soars-reaching-us56-billion-2024/1905590 https://www.campaignlive.com/article/amazons-ad-business-soa... The real problem in my opinion is the lack of competition to the "personalized" approach. Everyone (except Amazon) just accepts "personalized" as the default --- mainly because there is no credible, large scale, organized, generally available alternative to compare it to.
- hedora 1y ago
  There are smaller examples too. The Register was one such example the last time I checked. They sell space on articles and also run Sponsored Content features.
- labcomputer 1y ago
  Amazon is not a good example of contextual ads, though. It doesn't generalize: 1. You can easily argue that these "context sensitive" ads are actually personalized ads: They're personalized based on the search query you just made! Amazon context ads are the same as Google/Apple App Store "context ads". Suppliers are paying for higher ranking. 2. It's a shopping website! Of course those context ads are going to have high ROI because they're showing an ad relevant to the thing you're shopping for! When people talk about context ads, they mean "Why doesn't Facebook or the local newspaper use context ads?" They don't mean "Why doesn't Target put up a coupon for beans in the beans aisle?"
- glenstein 1y ago
  I don't think I want to argue againsr these ads on the basis that there's some alternative form of advertising that's more effective. The problem is with data mining and tracking and nudging behavior. I want the things driving my behavior to be originating from my own intentions or from my preferred sources of inspiration (e.g. friends, family, media I'm most interested in consuming.) You'll never be able to fully control the range of things that influence you, but you can still be intentional to a meaningful degree. For me that means supporting free and open source culture, and using subscription-based model rather than an ad-supported model for content. I'm not perfectly consistent but I am somewhat, and I think I'm operating from a coherent vision of what I believe my interests are, which is no small thing.
- dartharva 1y ago
  Not an apples to apples comparison really. Amazon owns the entire user journey on its platform, which the "ads" are an integral part of. They are not analogous to Google showing you ads in banners and searches for target pages it doesn't own, on platforms it doesn't own. If you want to compare Google to those who actually advertise with the scatter-shot approach, you compare them with traditional advertising providers - ad spaces on TV & radio channels, billboard companies etc. That'd be a fair comparison because Google is also essentially a seller of ad spaces it "rents" from other websites - just in this case those ad spaces can simultaneously show different advertisements for different clients to each user, based on that user's best-match profile. It's a no-brainer that Google's approach will yield more leads.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago

Was the issue trying to monetize your blog, or the way you did it? I assume the former.

unsungNovelty 1y ago

The entire podcast and youtube channel industry relies on contextual ads right? Havent almost everyone including MKBHD said youtube ads doesnt give them enough to be used as the only revenue. Contextual ads are more effective. You type shoes, you get shoes ads. It doesnt first need the shoe data and then later show shoe ads after you started searching for socks. And with no middlemen,more profitable. Duckduckgo employs this IIRC. Behavioural ads are easy cos you are setting up an api. Contextual ads would mean you need a worthy product and having to handle your ad folks yourself. You cannot buy a domain and immediately start showing ads. Behavioural ads breakeven because they sell your data. Not ads. The whole reason why new media outlets moved to subscription model is bizarre to me. They could've just started doing it old school and it would have made news open and more privacy friendly.

zamadatix 1y ago
Of course e.g. MKBHD wants more ad revenue. To do so his only option is to put additional contextual ads as part of the video itself, so he does. MKBHD has no way to make a section of the video target individual viewers based on their history. YouTube does, so they do - because they know it makes them more money to do it that way.
- unsungNovelty 1y ago
  Yes. It makes more money for the middle-man. Neither the advertisers nor user gets enough value. There are so many articles on why your FB or Google ads are not doing well. They show ads the way THEY can make money. Not value for you. This is theh same going when you use adwords.
extra88 1y ago
In-video sponsors are a form of contextual ad but ads inserted by YouTube are personalized (that doesn't mean context is not also a factor). Channels like MKBHD (and LTT) need more revenue than what they get from YouTube ads because their expenses have greatly increased, particularly staff. You can't automate contextual ads in news media, otherwise you get airline ads next to stories about airplane crashes. Or travel ads for places experiencing natural disasters or political upheaval. People pairing ads with stories increases the labor costs and there's already not enough money being paid for actual journalism to increase the cost of having ads.

hedora 1y ago

Behavioral ads transfer revenue away from publishers and to spam sites and the ad platform (google). Targeted ads are definitely better for the publisher, but hard to automate (the matchmaking between publishers and advertisers is less automated), but the percentage of ad spend that goes to the publisher is much higher, and the quality of each ad impression is higher. There’s some win for targeting on the margins, where there’s no good place to buy ads. Also, there’s an infinite inventory of targeted ad slots (like invisible windows displayed by malware or redirect spam), which could be better than display ads, where you might not be able to spend your marketing budget, at least in theory.

bee_rider 1y ago

I don’t have compelling evidence either way. But, I’d be a little skeptical of the data collected by the ad company. They are specifically and organization who’s entire skill-set includes convincing people to pay more, and that they might need some new service. I mean it isn’t some dirty secret, it is exactly what their value proposition is. The internal data you were viewing and the metrics they track are, in part, to show people and convince them to buy the ad service. That’s like pure uncut ad-guy ad-material.

Workaccount2 1y ago
There is no grand conspiracy, the ad industry is massive, and advertising works. Companies would find out pretty quickly that advertising is a waste of money, yet here we are decades later and they still ad spend like crazy. It definitely works, and the more tailored the ads, the better they work. The key is remembering we are talking about average people, not nerdy techno anarchists with router level ad blocking and a pavolonian vomit reflex to seeing the word "sponsored".
- bee_rider 1y ago
  It doesn’t require a grand conspiracy, just nobody deciding to rock the boat. It seems that when academics try to measure how effective the ads are, the effect sizes are much smaller than expected or it turns out the companies haven’t run any actual experiments. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-1-tv-ep-440/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w... https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w... > The key is remembering we are talking about average people, not nerdy techno anarchists with router level ad blocking and a pavolonian vomit reflex to seeing the word "sponsored". Sure, dump everyone who is skeptical of ads into this niche weird person case, and it makes it easier to ignore them. Have you actually talked to these “average people,” though? My experience has been that most people just find ads annoying.
  - qbit42 1y ago

glenstein 1y ago

>Personalized ads are more effective than non-personalized ads, to try to argue that personalized ads are ineffective is incorrect I basically agree with this. I think because people don't like personalized ads, there's a temptation to argue they don't work. But I think it's motivated reasoning in this case. And I actually think the argument against them is stronger when you acknowledge that they are more effective. The privacy issue goes hand in hand with the effect that ads collectively have to socialize people into consumer behaviors.