Why would I ever click on an ad?
How could anyone resist the allure of "Punch the Monkey"? Or Bonzi Buddy? :-)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/03/01/punch-the-monkey/
People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
31–40 of 122 posts
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#32I 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…
Agreed. I have clicked on many Adsense ads and never a Facebook ad. I have also clicked on a couple of Stack overflow ads, and got my current job thanks to stack overflow careers.
These advertisements add value to me and the site owner, and while I don't like them, I do not mind them if they are appropriately done and non intrusive.
I don't give a crap about the latest clash o clans rip-off, and if you advertise that to me you're hurting your CTR.
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#33Most people here seem to think that one clicks ads only by accident. If this were true such clicks would never lead to a purchase or just associate a brand with annoyance. I simply can't believe that. Sure, mostly, I see ads for stuff I have just purchased, sometimes for months but there also have been useful ones from time to time for me (mostly home automation/Raspberry Pi stuff), also my brain seems wired not to ignore such ads.
Aren't geeks missing out by ignoring things targeted specifically to them (us)? Are geeks just stubborn? If you say things like "we get a better deal because stupid ad clickers pay for our internet experience", you are completely missing the fact that such an ad clicker probably made a valuable discovery through an ad, one that was even worth real money!
Do most HN-ers really believe all ads are fraudulent rip-offs designed to trick us just into clicking on them? Sure some are, but people here seem to think they all are.
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#34Is it because they run ad-blockers or disable tracking more?
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#35Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#36Could 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…
Me too. Back in those days, they got paid per view. So it didn't matter if one click the ad. Nowadays most(?) ads are paid per click ("thanks" Google making that a thing). Those ads that follow you around aren't that fun at all, rather pretty creepy - the number one reason (I would say) that drive people to ad blockers. Another reason are ad overloaded sites that crash your mobile browser because of excessive memory usage.
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#37Could 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…
I do the same thing, but I expect that advertisers have our number, in the same way that they track hits to their website when their TV ad or product placement runs in a market.
The ad happens, sometimes we respond.
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#38Silicon Valley tends to lead the rest of the US in tech behaviors.
This is the best comment in here. We are the early adopters and when we do or don't do something, the rest aren't far behind with same.
Oh, "we" are so good, we are sooo leading. We even ignore things we don't want!
Or do "we" also ignore ads for things we do want and the rest of the populous does not, and are the rest of the people therefor smarter and better of? Are ads always fraudulent rip-offs? Really?
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#39Ironically, advertising business is mainly run by ad blocker users.
I heard that Google had to rename their ad management portal's CSS styles because the site was broken for customers using ad blockers. :)
Re: People in Silicon Valley Don’t Click on Ads
#40It actually looks more like people don't use Facebook nearly as much in general? I don't think this data supports the suggestion that people in Silicon Valley don't click on ads, they also have very low comment, like, and share frequency as well. I think active time on site per user in Silicon Valley is just lower than the national medians.
Also note that this seems to be rounded up to the nearest whole number, so we can't figure out like:ad click ratio or something like that from the data.