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GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

blogs.harvard.edu

441–450 of 454 posts

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#441

Tracking cookies gave the ability for small advertisers to understand their customers and their other consumption in ways that only the largest marketers could. The author thinks big brands are everything and can't see how letting smaller players sell to customers could help the economy. He uses an arbitrary standard of privacy to argue on the behalf of the largest household brands. I think he's missing the forest fo…

Small businesses (especially B2B) used to be able to buy small ads in mainstream publications that catered to the target customers. For example, we used to pay over a grand a month to one magazine, but that magazine drove fully-qualified potential customer traffic directly to our web site that easily paid for the ad. Today, we can't even find a decent place to advertise that doesn't effectively equate to lighting dollar bills on fire.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#442
post #194

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…

For Google, something similar can be found under My account -> Personal info & privacy -> Ads settings.

Most of the topics Google thinks I'm interested in are close enough. But American football and Parenting? I don't know where they got those. I have to consciously think to come up with the name of the local team ("Mariners? No, that's baseball."), and we don't have kids nor any plans to do so.

Maybe it was all the clicking on CafeMom.com (mommy blog with tons of trackers and ads) while I was testing the Pi-Hole set up. :-)

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#443
Aside from generating revenue for what are surely wasted impressions, why does the online ad industry constantly show users web ads for things they've already purchased?

Does this not represent conspicuously wasted spend on the part of these advertisers? It's been going on since the DoubleClick days and never ends. How can this industry bill clients with a straight face when their display decisions are made this crudely?

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this might be it eg spending $250 instead of $50 on shoes or boots for longer life and improved comfort.

$250 shoes do not last 5 times as long as $50 shoes. Improved comfort is the main benefit.

easier to repair also

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#445
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why Twitter is not doing as well as Facebook. Facebook doesn't need algorithms to know what you are interested in, where you like to eat, etc. You explicitly tell them in your info and by what types of articles you like and share, and what you post.

Twitter is the same, except even more-so. People tweet 10+ times a day, update FB status infrequently. All the things FB has done to extract things like resturant data etc are product development they undertook. Twitter spent 10 years moving form 140 characters to 280 instead.

Even if that is true, when people sign up for Facebook, they fill out a bio telling FB their work history, their school affiliations, who their family members are, their hometowns and current cities, they check in where they are at, tell FB their favorite books, music, tv shows, thier gender, relationship status, thier sexual preference, and thier political party affiliation. Everyone doesn't fill out everything, but a lot of people do.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#446
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing sounds very much like a bubble that is going to pop...

I said that GDPR will not affect much, other than a few companies that add up to a microscopic market share. Where's the bubble?

The bubble is those companies, although I guess the original article would argue that their market share is (currently) not microscopic.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#447
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is the same, except even more-so. People tweet 10+ times a day, update FB status infrequently. All the things FB has done to extract things like resturant data etc are product development they undertook. Twitter spent 10 years moving form 140 characters to 280 instead.

Even if that is true, when people sign up for Facebook, they fill out a bio telling FB their work history, their school affiliations, who their family members are, their hometowns and current cities, they check in where they are at, tell FB their favorite books, music, tv shows, thier gender, relationship status, thier sexual preference, and thier political party affiliation. Everyone doesn't fill out everything, but…

That's exactly my point.

There is no reason why Twitter couldn't have done the same 5 years ago. And no reason that they can't do it now.

(Also people are just as likely to follow and talk about things like tv shows and music and politics on Twitter as FB)

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#448
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 60% sure it's people who read articles from Adtech Corporations about GDPR and not from people in the EU having to deal with it. The only bad thing that I've noticed about GDPR is that some niche sites that rely on ad revenue are getting fucked over by Google (if you turn off personalized tracking for your visitors you still need the consent to track, there is no difference) so their income might break down. That…

I doubt it's only that. I think it's also the tendency of people nowadays to only read titles and not to investigate further. I think some people are triggered by the phrase "right to be forgotten" and they jump to conclusions without finding out what it's really about.

The EU cookie law was almost the same issue, barely anyone implemented it and those who did did so poorly or incorrectly.

This time it bites back tho.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#449
I work for a large adtech company. It's funny how people think they're tracked. Besides websites like Google and Facebook there is no personal information stored. No emails, no names, no way to figure out who that person actual is. Not sure why everyone is freaked out about personalized ads.

Re: GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

#450

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…

> I'm pretty sure that, the more we learn about how well advertising works, the less money people will be willing to pay for it. What's happening to billboards and newspapers right now is probably coming to several other industries soon.

I don't see any evidence to support that. Total spending on advertising is increasing every year. Newspaper spending is down, Google & Facebook is way up. Overall it's up.

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