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Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

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Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#12

This is going to give away a huge competitive advantage for good marketers. If I know my political ads are most effective with Women, 45-65, who are Hispanic, and that's where I'm focusing my spend.... Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? If they give that level of detail for political ads, I hope they at least spare startup businesses who are still researching to find their ideal audience.

FB is also doing the same thing, starting today. Brutal.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#13

This is going to give away a huge competitive advantage for good marketers. If I know my political ads are most effective with Women, 45-65, who are Hispanic, and that's where I'm focusing my spend.... Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? If they give that level of detail for political ads, I hope they at least spare startup businesses who are still researching to find their ideal audience.

> Is it fair for the opponent to have that information?

I'm parsing "fair" in the form of: imagine two societies, one where such information is private the other where it's public. Who outperforms?

Would the number of start-ups which cave because an incumbent snipes their marketing outweigh the number who could piggyback on an incumbent's revealed slicing? (The latter, by marketing to the same customers better or noticing who is being left out.) Will consumers see more advertising or less? If more, will they respond to the deluge by defaulting to the incumbent or trying new options more frequently?

I don't know. But we have an opportunity to find out. If this drives innovation, I'd say a case is to be made to open up these data across advertising platforms. Who knows. Maybe it's the tool to pry apart Facebook and Google's stranglehold.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#14

This is going to give away a huge competitive advantage for good marketers. If I know my political ads are most effective with Women, 45-65, who are Hispanic, and that's where I'm focusing my spend.... Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? If they give that level of detail for political ads, I hope they at least spare startup businesses who are still researching to find their ideal audience.

In my opinion, not only is it fair but it’s important that all ads — particularly political ads — are transparent in this way. This transparency is a public good for media literacy. Marketing is manipulation and often people don’t notice or are tricked into thinking elsewise.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#15
post #2

Won't this just lead to "laundering" platforms like what happened with Whois?

This ad was purchased by Americans for America.

At least that's something you can research, unlike now where you have no information.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#16

This is going to give away a huge competitive advantage for good marketers. If I know my political ads are most effective with Women, 45-65, who are Hispanic, and that's where I'm focusing my spend.... Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? If they give that level of detail for political ads, I hope they at least spare startup businesses who are still researching to find their ideal audience.

> Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? I'm parsing "fair" in the form of: imagine two societies, one where such information is private the other where it's public. Who outperforms? Would the number of start-ups which cave because an incumbent snipes their marketing outweigh the number who could piggyback on an incumbent's revealed slicing? (The latter, by marketing to the same customers better or not…

You realize though that at least a Facebook has the same features, right?

In fact FB went much farther in that for example they let you go back 7 YEARS in a pages ad history and not just 7 days like Twitter does

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#17
post #4

This only applies to overt ads which are hardly the problem. It does nothing to mitigate the armies of astroturfers influencing public opinion.

astroturfers influencing public opinion.

For the most part, people don’t look to social media to find content that helps them form their opinions; they look to it to reinforce already held opinions. It's an echo chamber.

That means astroturfing may lead to more divisiveness, as people seek out content that makes them more sure than ever that their opinion is the one and only correct one. But it does not “influence public opinion” since nobody is jumping to the other side of an issue based on astroturfing. It just makes the world a more hostile place.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#18

This is going to give away a huge competitive advantage for good marketers. If I know my political ads are most effective with Women, 45-65, who are Hispanic, and that's where I'm focusing my spend.... Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? If they give that level of detail for political ads, I hope they at least spare startup businesses who are still researching to find their ideal audience.

> Is it fair for the opponent to have that information? I'm parsing "fair" in the form of: imagine two societies, one where such information is private the other where it's public. Who outperforms? Would the number of start-ups which cave because an incumbent snipes their marketing outweigh the number who could piggyback on an incumbent's revealed slicing? (The latter, by marketing to the same customers better or not…

> by marketing to the same customers better or noticing who is being left out.

Noticing who is being left out would be a start-up’s marketing strategy that can be sniped by the incumbent.

I agree with the overall sentiments however.

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#19
post #6
post #4

This only applies to overt ads which are hardly the problem. It does nothing to mitigate the armies of astroturfers influencing public opinion.

Still, it's certainly a welcome change, and a step in the right direction. I wonder what the best way to combat large-scale astroturfing on a platform like twitter would be; My first thought would be a rep system akin to those of StackOverflow or HN, but I'm not sure how you would implement it such that there's not a large impact on legitimate new users - there's no system like upvotes Twitter could use to stratify.

> I wonder what the best way to combat large-scale astroturfing on a platform like twitter would be

Report them to the FTC because paid endorsements/reviews/etc are subject to disclosure [1].

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...

Re: Twitter Will Show Who Pays for Ads and How Much They Spend

#20
post #4

This only applies to overt ads which are hardly the problem. It does nothing to mitigate the armies of astroturfers influencing public opinion.

astroturfers influencing public opinion. For the most part, people don’t look to social media to find content that helps them form their opinions; they look to it to reinforce already held opinions. It's an echo chamber. That means astroturfing may lead to more divisiveness, as people seek out content that makes them more sure than ever that their opinion is the one and only correct one. But it does not “influence pu…

That seems unlikely. For anything new or unfamiliar, people will not have established opinions yet. Their opinions will form under the influence of their experiences, including astroturfers on social media.
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