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People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

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21–30 of 122 posts

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#21

I really wish there was a service which would let me gripe about my problems and it would email me 10 Ads a month of products trying to solve those problems.

You mean like some sort of text box, where you type in your problem, and get results, perhaps augmented with some paid advertising from folks that know their offering would solve your problem? :-)

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#23

I really wish there was a service which would let me gripe about my problems and it would email me 10 Ads a month of products trying to solve those problems.

"Advertize what you want to buy, not what you sell" I forget the name but there was a site trying that about eight years ago. Argentinian startup I think. Might be worth trying again, you could build early adoption from twitter maybe? Usual problem building a two sided market...

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#24
Ad clicks are studied pretty extensively. A good search term is "compulsive clickers." The cariacature-with-a-bit-of-truth version is less-educated older white woman in Iowa. The heavy clicking user population, roughly 4% of users, is generally believed to contribute more than a majority of total clicks.

This is as well-studied as you'd expect of clearly quantifiable data worth billions of dollars, and remains socially contentious.

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#25
post #4

Could this be explained by technical people using more ad-blockers? Or is it adjusted for ad-blockers?

A curious note on my own behaviour. I've been on the internet since...roughly 1993/94?

Reflecting on how I act, even back in the day "before ad-blockers", even if I saw an ad that seemed to link me to the place I wanted to go, I wouldn't click on it.

Instead I would open up a new window/tab, actively go to a search engine, search for the website/company/product I was interested in visiting (perhaps the one mentioned in the link/ad) and enter via their website/front door.

I think this is a behaviour I've picked up from the historically learning that banners/popups are just BAD NEWS...no exceptions. Like powerpoints, attachments or strange emails, I just have ingrained in me these things are not to be trusted and to not engage with them. Who knew where they're really taking you with their redirects, what they're doing, if they're really sending you where they say they are, or whether there's some hijack/virus/whatever. Back in the day, they were just generally something delivered from the seedier side of the internet: something to be avoided.

Nowdays, the seedier/annoying side of the internet has of course become the mainstream, but that's why we have ad-blockers.

I'm curious to know though, if I'm the only person who, through their own behaviour/history/preference, has been trained to go straight to the company/source/product rather than through an ad even when its presented to us...

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#26

I really wish there was a service which would let me gripe about my problems and it would email me 10 Ads a month of products trying to solve those problems.

"Advertize what you want to buy, not what you sell" I forget the name but there was a site trying that about eight years ago. Argentinian startup I think. Might be worth trying again, you could build early adoption from twitter maybe? Usual problem building a two sided market...

See "The intention economy" by Doc Searls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_economy

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#27
Also interesting is the skew in visiting Facebook via desktop computers vs. mobile in tech-centric areas vs. non-tech-centric areas. In addition, it was interesting the see the difference in usage patterns between Denver and Boulder, given that they are so close geographically.

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#28
Here are my reasons for not clicking on ads.

1. Knowledge - I know an ad when I see one. And I know someone's getting paid for that click. It's like knowing the trick behind a magic trick.

2. I used to click ads - I clicked a ton of ads when I was still learning to use the web. So now, my bullshit detector is well trained. It can tell spam just from the URL, the wordings, the color...

3. I see fewer ads now - Host blocking + ublock block origin.

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#29
I want contextual ads, like the original AdSense

"Contextual advertising is a form of targeted advertising in which the content of an ad is in direct correlation to the content of the web page the user is viewing. For example, if you are visiting a website concerning travelling in Europe and see that an ad pops up offering a special price on a flight to Italy, that’s contextual advertising. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdSense#History , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextual_advertising

Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads

#30
post #4

Could this be explained by technical people using more ad-blockers? Or is it adjusted for ad-blockers?

A curious note on my own behaviour. I've been on the internet since...roughly 1993/94? Reflecting on how I act, even back in the day "before ad-blockers", even if I saw an ad that seemed to link me to the place I wanted to go, I wouldn't click on it. Instead I would open up a new window/tab, actively go to a search engine, search for the website/company/product I was interested in visiting (perhaps the one mentioned…

You're not alone, I do the same. Anything living in the traditionally scuzzy bottom of article and right sidebar areas is guilty until proven otherwise. I'd be curious to see some research on this because I've actually had trouble finding things I was looking for when they were in traditionally bad screen real estate. When something does manage to seem interesting my assumption is that it's simply lying to me and won't take me to the thing I'm actually looking for. So rather than spend the extra time being disappointed and hitting ⌘+[ I just open the new tab and search.

I use vimium so I do occasionally fat-finger or mis-read a flag and end up following an ad.

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