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GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

blogs.harvard.edu

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Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#281

Post by reaperducer »

nine_k wrote: post #223
madeofpalk wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By and large, it doesn't, very well. I know Twitter isn't known for being the best at advertising, but it was made exceptionally clear to me that online advertising is a massive bunch of lies when I did my GDPR Twitter data export and it included me in a bunch of incorrect, non-sensical and contradictory ad targeting groups. Twitter claims I: * Own a cat, dog and other animal (I don't) * Have between $100k- $999k l…

Have they got the following mostly right: * Your age bracket; * The fact that your net worth is positive (not deep in debt); * Whether you live in a city / suburb / countryside; * Which part of country is that; * Your gender; * Your race / ethnicity, broadly? If so, they still have an immensely precise focus on you, compared to TV, radio, or paper media, even if they're mistaken about your cat.

He just doesn't want to admit on HN that he has a cat.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#282

Post by dizzystar »

rossdavidh wrote: post #59

Oddly, I think the article underestimates the size of the change coming. I think one side affect of the surge of IT into advertising, is that it has become easier to measure exactly how well advertising works. By and large, it doesn't, very well. I am reminded of this, from Paul Graham, about his time at Yahoo: http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html "...The reason Yahoo didn't care about a technique that extracted the…

Advertising doesn't work that well if you look at the raw numbers. Assume you have a great campaign and awesome conversion funnel, so that you get 1% clicks and 1% conversion.

The math is 100 x 100, or one sale for every 10,000 eyes who sees your ad.

In a vacuum, those numbers are awful. If your entire marketing strategy is buying ads to convert to sales, then of course, advertising doesn't work, and really, you probably shouldn't be advertising in the first place.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#283

Post by manigandham »

dizzystar wrote: post #282
rossdavidh wrote: post #59

Oddly, I think the article underestimates the size of the change coming. I think one side affect of the surge of IT into advertising, is that it has become easier to measure exactly how well advertising works. By and large, it doesn't, very well. I am reminded of this, from Paul Graham, about his time at Yahoo: http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html "...The reason Yahoo didn't care about a technique that extracted the…

Advertising doesn't work that well if you look at the raw numbers. Assume you have a great campaign and awesome conversion funnel, so that you get 1% clicks and 1% conversion. The math is 100 x 100, or one sale for every 10,000 eyes who sees your ad. In a vacuum, those numbers are awful. If your entire marketing strategy is buying ads to convert to sales, then of course, advertising doesn't work, and really, you prob…

The only thing that matters is ROAS. If you spend $1 and get back > $1 in return, it works.

Also about half the market is branding, which is all about exposure rather than direct clicks or conversions.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#284

Post by Krasnol »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #100
icebraining wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring them to check an "I agree to be tracked" checkbox and signing an agreement (which has just happened to me yesterday in an EU country in accordance to GDPR) before they can use a product/service is hardly much better. That's specifically not allowed under the GDPR. Either the information is needed to provide the service (and needed means actually needed, not "my business model depends on it"), in which case…

I have visited a drugstore to buy some vitamins yesterday. They have handled me a touch-screen where I had to check a checkbox (saying that I agree to allow my medicines shopping history to be stored and analyzed to track my health (which I obviously don't want them to do actually)) and an electronic signature tablet with a stylus where I had to put my signature. This was a mandatory condition for continuing using a…

So they have been storing and analyzing your health already and now they need your signature?

Sounds like something I'd opt-out, request all past data and have it deleted afterwards.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#285

Post by wpietri »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #221
FooBarWidget wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't what you're saying in your first paragraph just strawmanning the definition of "relevant"? If you do not want to buy anything no matter what they show you then those ads are by definition not relevant. If they make you want to buy then the ads are by definition relevant. They aren't brainwashing you, at the end of the day the one in control of the credit card is still you.

> They aren't brainwashing you, at the end of the day the one in control of the credit card is still you. Right, because we're all perfectly rational robots with full control of all of our emotions and impulses, and the advertisers totally don't employ cutting-edge research in psychology to manipulate us.

Exactly. The actual point of most advertising is to manipulate people into doing what the advertiser wants. Coca Cola doesn't spend billions on advertising because somebody out there isn't aware of Coke.

Even if I never fall for it, the stuff that's most "relevant" from the advertiser perspective is to me the stuff I have to do the most mental work to ignore. The more irrelevant it is, the less I notice it at all.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#286

Post by manigandham »

It won't do much. It'll definitely get rid of some low-value companies but that's about it.

People think that adtech has some incredible insights but 99% of data is terrible. If you check your profile at any major site, you'll quickly find that you're probably in several conflicting segments that have nothing to do with you. Context is still king for any marketer who knows what they're doing, but unfortunately the industry is overwhelmed with subpar talent and politics through layers of agencies that buy buzzwords like "AI" and "data". Barely any adtech companies have a direct link to a person, and any links that did exist are even harder now with adblocking, 3rd party cookie deletion, ephemeral mobile device ids, IP renewals, and other noisy and loose signals.

Interestingly, big companies like Facebook and Google that have user logins and 1st party data connections will actually benefit from the higher industry regulation and are not going to lose any of the data that users willingly give to them. ISPs are another major source of data, along with credit agencies and banks, and now giant ecommerce companies like Walmart and Amazon, all of which have very accurate and exhaustive histories and will see little change from GDPR. Overall it's well-intentioned, and good progress, but what it will do is vastly overstated.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#287

Post by levashovbiz »

madeofpalk wrote: post #112
rossdavidh wrote: post #59

Oddly, I think the article underestimates the size of the change coming. I think one side affect of the surge of IT into advertising, is that it has become easier to measure exactly how well advertising works. By and large, it doesn't, very well. I am reminded of this, from Paul Graham, about his time at Yahoo: http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html "...The reason Yahoo didn't care about a technique that extracted the…

> By and large, it doesn't, very well. I know Twitter isn't known for being the best at advertising, but it was made exceptionally clear to me that online advertising is a massive bunch of lies when I did my GDPR Twitter data export and it included me in a bunch of incorrect, non-sensical and contradictory ad targeting groups. Twitter claims I: * Own a cat, dog and other animal (I don't) * Have between $100k- $999k l…

I had very similar experience with Facebook when tried to check my profile. Out of 20 interests only 4 were correct

I think it is an intentional stretching the interests way to far to look better for advertisers.

In more details: https://levashov.biz/can-trust-facebook-audience-interests/

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#288

Post by gipp »

cbcoutinho wrote: post #226
matte_black wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that’s true, but if the ML ad targeting industry disappears, several of those currently employed ML workers have little to no reason to exist.

Yikes! Why the hyperbole? I'm sure if someone is clever enough to learn and be productive with ML, they'll be able to pivot and be productive in another field and/or using other tools.

He's talking about the positions, not the people in them.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#289

Post by chrononaut »

zerostar07 wrote: post #230
TeMPOraL wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it ends up abused by marketers, and frequently ends up facilitating crime as well. GDPR as a law came out directly from the last decade of mass surveillance economy.

So what? It was part of the agreement when you consented. The same way that when you go to a club, a strip club, or a casino you know you 'll be exploited in a way. Sounds like advocating for overreaching laws that "save you from yourself" and keep you away from harm / drugs etc. It's a bit ironic that you brought up mass surveillance because GDPR explicitly exempts the police and security services from its reach. Ed…

Legitimate question; if you're not American, why do you think the NSA would be impacting your individual freedom, or perhaps the freedom made available by the state(s) of your citizenship(s)? Or were you more referencing that it is violating your privacy?

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#290

Post by TheForumTroll »

tzs wrote: post #277
solomatov wrote: post #30

One surprising side effect of this might be that the hordes of machine learners and data scientists who used to work for adtech might go to healthcare/bioinformatics where we might get new breakthroughs.

They can still use sufficiently anonymized data under GDPR. They also will have data from people who have consented to have their data used. They will also have data from visitors who are not in the Union. I would not at all be surprised if this is enough for the machine learning and data science people to be effective, especially at very high traffic sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I don't believe for a second that they can make the data "sufficiently anonymized". That is extremely hard and pretty much every time "sufficiently anonymized" data gets leaked it turns out it weasn't sufficiently anonymized after all.
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