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Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#141

Post by earenndil »

bscphil wrote: post #79
scarface74 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of users are using FB on mobile and the FB app is one of the most popular. Ad Blockers that most people are using on mobile - either via the built in content blocking framework on iOS or by using another browser on Android, don’t work on FB. FB uses “native ads” and “boosted content” that are indistinguishable from regular posts.

Even on desktop FB's ads are unblocked (or were when I used to have a FB account). They use a significant amount of obfuscation to make it impossible to use typical adblock techniques (url filter, css selectors, simple heuristics) without breaking the rest of the site. So far as I can tell most of the filter maintainers leave Facebook's native ads alone.

I read a while back about a research project to implement adblocking with computer vision. Wonder if that might be able to do it...

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#142

Post by flukus »

Buge wrote: post #114
manigandham wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not the case. The Google machine includes: Google Analytics, Adwords/Adsense, Doubleclick network, Android and store, Chrome Browser, Chrome OS, Maps/Streetview, Gmail, G-Suite, Youtube, Google Play, Google Fiber, Google Fi, Public DNS, all the various websites with 1st party cookies, connections to Salesforce CRM, and the recently announced Mastercard purchase data. Facebook and Amazon are nowhere close t…

According to the privacy page for Public DNS, it sounds like that data is not used for ads https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy >We don't correlate or combine information from our temporary or permanent logs with any personal information that you have provided Google for other services.

For now, if they ever get to the point where it's used in the default DNS in most home modems and consumer devices then I'd expect that to change.

Edit - s/root/default

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#143

Post by everythingswan »

scarface74 wrote: post #82
hartator wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Google is still way ahead. > Google’s U.S. ad revenue is expected to rise $5 billion this year to $39.9 billion, while Facebook could rise $3 billion this year to $21 billion, according to eMarketer. Adwords is just so effective to find your customers. You won't beat `buy new headphones` type traffic on Amazon or Facebook.

I just searched for “buy new headphones” on Google with my ad blocker turned off. It showed ads where I could get headphones from different web sites - where neither I nor most people have an account. What’s more likely? That I am going to register for an account on “Under Armour” - the first site that appeared or that I’m going to go to Amazon where they already have all of my information,I’m an Amazon Prime custome…

I think the clear answer is it's not for you. Part of the reason behind selling through other channels is to capture people like you: you (and me for most things) would rather shop through Amazon than a retailer.

Retail vs. online is a prime example of channel selling. Some people prefer to try on things or are so brand loyal that they're blind to other retailers.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#144

Post by usaar333 »

scarface74 wrote: post #120
usaar333 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might I ask what demographic group you are in? I personally am in the "founding generation of FB" (now a early 30s engineer in the US) and it's obvious to me that at least the people I know aren't giving data that much to FB. While plenty lurk or use messenger, quick sampling shows So to answer your questions: > How does Google know my birthday > exactly how old I am I'll give you FB has exactness better specified, t…

Might I ask what demographic group you are in? I personally am in the "founding generation of FB" (now a early 30s engineer in the US) and it's obvious to me that at least the people I know aren't giving data that much to FB. While plenty lurk or use messenger, quick sampling shows We aren’t talking anecdotally about “people you know”. Facebook has more than 2 billion daily active users. I'll give you FB has exactnes…

> We aren’t talking anecdotally about “people you know”.

Agreed, I'm raising anecdotes as I haven't seen any data users frequently update.

Quick search shows https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/. If you do the math, there's about 1.3 status updates/week/active-user. That's not a lot of voluntary data being given per user and I suspect this is subject to a huge power law where median is far less than 1.

> how will it correlate LinkedIn profiles with Google users?

Profiles are public and picked up by Google search. Correlation is pretty easy to do - simple method is real name match + geo-ip.

> How many people use email in 2018 for personal communications?

I don't have solid data; do you? That said, I and almost everyone I know uses email as the primary means for long-form (i.e. anything that requires more than a sentence) personal communication. (I feel like we're talking past each other due to the lack of data + being in different circles)

> People only use maps when they don’t know where they are going. People will check in a lot more.

Source on both pieces of data?

I'm skeptical as:

1. Maps is valuable for traffic-adjusted navigation.

2. Maps has 1B montly active users

3. Check-ins are rare. (looking at my feed - I can't find numbers)

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#145

Post by confounded »

mrep wrote: post #87
adrr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're talking about data I think Google wins. Email is the activity stream of all your online purchases. Google analytics has the users' clickstream data. Google messenger and google+ gets the relationships the user has. Youtube gets entertainment data. Search is what is relevant to the custom at the moment of time. If I was Amazon, i'd look at buying mint from intuit to get all the banking data from users.

Google doesn't read your email for ads anymore so that is moot for them.

Source?

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#146

Post by Buge »

flukus wrote: post #142
Buge wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the privacy page for Public DNS, it sounds like that data is not used for ads https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy >We don't correlate or combine information from our temporary or permanent logs with any personal information that you have provided Google for other services.

For now, if they ever get to the point where it's used in the default DNS in most home modems and consumer devices then I'd expect that to change. Edit - s/root/default

I think you mean default DNS resolver, not root DNS. The DNS root servers are something completely different.

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

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#147

Post by scarface74 »

usaar333 wrote: post #144
scarface74 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might I ask what demographic group you are in? I personally am in the "founding generation of FB" (now a early 30s engineer in the US) and it's obvious to me that at least the people I know aren't giving data that much to FB. While plenty lurk or use messenger, quick sampling shows We aren’t talking anecdotally about “people you know”. Facebook has more than 2 billion daily active users. I'll give you FB has exactnes…

> We aren’t talking anecdotally about “people you know”. Agreed, I'm raising anecdotes as I haven't seen any data users frequently update. Quick search shows https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ . If you do the math, there's about 1.3 status updates/week/active-user. That's not a lot of voluntary data being given per user and I suspect this is subject to a huge power law where median is far less…

Facebook has 1.2 Billion active daily users. https://www.statista.com/statistics/346167/facebook-global-d...

Even if they aren’t actively posting updates, they are liking, following, clicking on things.

Other staggering statistics are that 50% of all 18-24 year olds check Facebook when they first wake up....

https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/

And “email is for old people” has been a popular topic for over a decade.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/dec/06/digitalco...

How much personal email are people really doing in 2018 that’s not not either bulk email or business to business (meaning Google wouldn’t have visibility), etc?

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

scarface74 wrote: post #147
usaar333 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We aren’t talking anecdotally about “people you know”. Agreed, I'm raising anecdotes as I haven't seen any data users frequently update. Quick search shows https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ . If you do the math, there's about 1.3 status updates/week/active-user. That's not a lot of voluntary data being given per user and I suspect this is subject to a huge power law where median is far less…

Facebook has 1.2 Billion active daily users. https://www.statista.com/statistics/346167/facebook-global-d... Even if they aren’t actively posting updates, they are liking, following, clicking on things. Other staggering statistics are that 50% of all 18-24 year olds check Facebook when they first wake up.... https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ And “email is for old people” has been a popular top…

> Even if they aren’t actively posting updates, they are liking, following, clicking on things.

Or logging on to third party sites that use FB login.

Re: Amazon Sets Its Sights on the $88B Online Ad Market

#149

Post by ethbro »

hayksaakian wrote: post #67
ethbro wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing parent's comment was speaking more about potentials than current realities with regards to Amazon targeting. The fact is, I assume Amazon really doesn't care about the ad business. They've offloaded that via affiliate links to third parties (a smart move). Putting more effort into offering ad targeting now seems less about making money and more about draining value from Google and Facebook.

You're mixing things up, the affiliate business is a totally separate thing from the ads you see on amazon.com

They both fulfill the same purpose from Amazon's perspective: driving sales.

Amazon has always been driven by volume. Get enough of it, and no one else can survive.

From that perspective, selling ad impressions is... tangential. So they make "a few" (billion) on the side, it doesn't further their primary business.

Whereas Google or Facebook without ads would be... what?

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