7 ms·

Firstly the term "relevant ads" is good marketing. They are really "ads targeted to extract maximal revenue from this user". Well targeted ads are basically us

Firstly the term "relevant ads" is good marketing. They are really "ads targeted to extract maximal revenue from this user". Well targeted ads are basically useless to the consumer since if you actually need something then you know this and you can search for it. The market operating in ad networks optimizes ads that sell enough to pay for more ads while remaining profitable, there is no mechanic that bubbles the best/least expensive offer to consumers since they are not the customer. To enable all this targeting you need to implement surveillance on your targets as widely as possible. So nearly all my internet is surveilled, by many parties, in order to spam the web with offers that are marked up enough to pay for winning ad auctions on popular terms for things I don't need, and could easily find if I did. I get not caring about this. I don't get how anyone who understands how it works would not understanding the popular interest in subverting this mess.

lsc 13y ago
>Well targeted ads are basically useless to the consumer since if you actually need something then you know this and you can search for it. The market operating in ad networks optimizes ads that sell enough to pay for more ads while remaining profitable, there is no mechanic that bubbles the best/least expensive offer to consumers since they are not the customer. ... >I get not caring about this. I don't get how anyone who understands how it works would not understanding the popular interest in subverting this mess. Well said. From the consumers point of view? this makes a lot of sense. An ad should convey no credibility. What I find interesting here is that even as the customer, most of the data passed down to the small business owner (say, me when I'm buying display ads) is massaged by folks who are way smarter than I am, and who have an interest in taking credit for as much of my profitability as possible. I mean, it's possible that they have a better view than I do of what causes people to choose me... really, it's kinda likely. but they have no interest in sharing that data with me, and I lack the ability to understand that data even if they did want to share it with me. I think the upshot is that most 'targeted ads' are not nearly as effective as the buyers of said ads are lead to believe. Sure, I can buy ads that bring up my company when a user searches for "VPS" or "Linux VPS" or what have you, but I don't think people are going to buy from me unless they've actually heard about me from a credible source. I mean, Personally? when I buy advertising, one of my first questions is "Do I want to be associated with the content on the page" - I think of it more as 'sponsorship' - you know, when a beer company sponsors a baseball team. I think a lot of the value I get out of advertising is that association with the community, and the more intermediaries you have between me and the community generating the content, the less value I see in the transaction. Really, Eivind Uggedal[1] probably deserves 80% of every advertising dollar I've spent in the last four years. [1]http://uggedal.com/journal/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-and-prgmr/ http://uggedal.com/journal/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-... (yes, yes, I know he did one later where linode kicked my ass, (I argue that was because linode gives you more vcpus, optimizing for best case, while I give you fewer, optimizing for worst-case, but as far as I can tell, they have some I/O monitoring sauce I don't, that really is better) but still, things like that are what I think is primarily responsible for people going through with a purchase... that and word of mouth. Paying google because they gave me the 'last click' is kinda silly.)
gohrt 13y ago
That's like saying teaching in school is useless, because if I need to know something, I'll ask someone. This point of view is value-destroyingly cynical.
- Tsagadai 13y ago
  Not keeping up with the latest fashions is value destroying. Not buying a new car every 3 years is value destroying. If I could modify my vision to not show me billboards, brands and placards I would. While I still have a choice whether to be or not to be the product I intend to exercise that choice. I refuse to be a cash cow for the highest bidder.
- _delirium 13y ago
  That's not quite analogous, because in this situation the ad-seller is also claiming to be the teacher. Google's mission is to return the most relevant content whenever you search. If they succeed at that, then every time you search for something, you will get the most relevant stuff as the top few organic search results. The ads will therefore just be noise; the organic search results will be exactly what you want.
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    Exactly this. Organic search always wins, while ads distract. I've never stopped finding ads to be the not-so-poor-man's way of not bothering to be good at SEO. I tend to view them as a rough analogue to a traffic camera ticket--do nothing to improve the public interest, and basically allow people who can afford it to not bother about playing by or learning the rules.
- freshhawk 13y ago
  So you are contending that customers are informed of anything with ad targeting? I worked in the online ad targeting/ad network industry for half a decade and strongly disagree with that premise. The shadiest of products (penis enlargement, work from home, etc) are advertised with specifically "stupid" ads, because by eliminating the people who would never buy such a bad product in the first place they improve their CTR, screen before the click. That's the far end of the spectrum, but the premise is generally true for all advertising. Informing your customers and competing on value is an inefficient method of advertising, it's much more profitable to find another, less rational, purchase trigger to exploit. There are many to choose from but traditionally this was still quite difficult and very risky. Now, with detailed analytics and advanced data processing you can just try them all and have the system cluster and optimize each approach. "Relevant" ad targeting is sold as a method to display ads that will likely appeal to targets but an enormous part of it is screening those users who are informed enough to know that your product is not a wise purchasing decision. And all of this lives in an auction model, so you either adapt to the more efficient methods or you get outbid on your keywords.

lsc 13y ago

>Well targeted ads are basically useless to the consumer since if you actually need something then you know this and you can search for it. The market operating in ad networks optimizes ads that sell enough to pay for more ads while remaining profitable, there is no mechanic that bubbles the best/least expensive offer to consumers since they are not the customer. ... >I get not caring about this. I don't get how anyone who understands how it works would not understanding the popular interest in subverting this mess. Well said. From the consumers point of view? this makes a lot of sense. An ad should convey no credibility. What I find interesting here is that even as the customer, most of the data passed down to the small business owner (say, me when I'm buying display ads) is massaged by folks who are way smarter than I am, and who have an interest in taking credit for as much of my profitability as possible. I mean, it's possible that they have a better view than I do of what causes people to choose me... really, it's kinda likely. but they have no interest in sharing that data with me, and I lack the ability to understand that data even if they did want to share it with me. I think the upshot is that most 'targeted ads' are not nearly as effective as the buyers of said ads are lead to believe. Sure, I can buy ads that bring up my company when a user searches for "VPS" or "Linux VPS" or what have you, but I don't think people are going to buy from me unless they've actually heard about me from a credible source. I mean, Personally? when I buy advertising, one of my first questions is "Do I want to be associated with the content on the page" - I think of it more as 'sponsorship' - you know, when a beer company sponsors a baseball team. I think a lot of the value I get out of advertising is that association with the community, and the more intermediaries you have between me and the community generating the content, the less value I see in the transaction. Really, Eivind Uggedal[1] probably deserves 80% of every advertising dollar I've spent in the last four years. [1]http://uggedal.com/journal/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-and-prgmr/ http://uggedal.com/journal/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-... (yes, yes, I know he did one later where linode kicked my ass, (I argue that was because linode gives you more vcpus, optimizing for best case, while I give you fewer, optimizing for worst-case, but as far as I can tell, they have some I/O monitoring sauce I don't, that really is better) but still, things like that are what I think is primarily responsible for people going through with a purchase... that and word of mouth. Paying google because they gave me the 'last click' is kinda silly.)

gohrt 13y ago

That's like saying teaching in school is useless, because if I need to know something, I'll ask someone. This point of view is value-destroyingly cynical.

Tsagadai 13y ago
Not keeping up with the latest fashions is value destroying. Not buying a new car every 3 years is value destroying. If I could modify my vision to not show me billboards, brands and placards I would. While I still have a choice whether to be or not to be the product I intend to exercise that choice. I refuse to be a cash cow for the highest bidder.
_delirium 13y ago
That's not quite analogous, because in this situation the ad-seller is also claiming to be the teacher. Google's mission is to return the most relevant content whenever you search. If they succeed at that, then every time you search for something, you will get the most relevant stuff as the top few organic search results. The ads will therefore just be noise; the organic search results will be exactly what you want.
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  Exactly this. Organic search always wins, while ads distract. I've never stopped finding ads to be the not-so-poor-man's way of not bothering to be good at SEO. I tend to view them as a rough analogue to a traffic camera ticket--do nothing to improve the public interest, and basically allow people who can afford it to not bother about playing by or learning the rules.
freshhawk 13y ago
So you are contending that customers are informed of anything with ad targeting? I worked in the online ad targeting/ad network industry for half a decade and strongly disagree with that premise. The shadiest of products (penis enlargement, work from home, etc) are advertised with specifically "stupid" ads, because by eliminating the people who would never buy such a bad product in the first place they improve their CTR, screen before the click. That's the far end of the spectrum, but the premise is generally true for all advertising. Informing your customers and competing on value is an inefficient method of advertising, it's much more profitable to find another, less rational, purchase trigger to exploit. There are many to choose from but traditionally this was still quite difficult and very risky. Now, with detailed analytics and advanced data processing you can just try them all and have the system cluster and optimize each approach. "Relevant" ad targeting is sold as a method to display ads that will likely appeal to targets but an enormous part of it is screening those users who are informed enough to know that your product is not a wise purchasing decision. And all of this lives in an auction model, so you either adapt to the more efficient methods or you get outbid on your keywords.