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Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

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Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#61

Post by jasonlfunk »

oceliker wrote: post #32

I'm somewhat confused here. I live in the US but regularly visit Turkey to see family (say, once a year). I also regularly Google things related to the US when I'm there. Clicks outside the US are not necessarily meaningless -- the screenshot in the article shows that they are targeting people "regularly in the US". Just because I left for a couple of weeks does not mean I abandoned everything related to where I live…

I’m the opposite. An American living abroad. US targeted ads still are applicable to me. I can understand why someone might want to disable this feature, but it’s not a scam by any means.

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#62

Post by anchpop »

axaxs wrote: post #39
ijidak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As an advertiser, who traces each ad, I can say that advertising has demonstrably made me thousands upon thousands of dollars. However, 80% of ads are trash peddled by blind men leading blind men. There are very specific advertising techniques that work consistently, but most "marketing types" optimize for flashy artistic ads that have literally ZERO selling power. In fact, in some studies, ads actually REDUCE s…

Are they impulse buyers, or highly specialized? From time to time I see a cool thing that seems targeted to me, do click it, see the outrageous price, then do research and find the best price/quality ratio on Amazon. I assumed most people did the same really. An example from years back: I thought the Little Giant ladder was an awesome idea, but ridiculously priced. I bought a gorilla knockoff type ladder instead.

I'm not sure, but my girlfriend clicks on ads on instagram and buys things directly from there on a regular basis. I think the people who go on HN might be in a little bit of a bubble about the efficacy of advertisements.

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#63

Post by Mountain_Skies »

cbsks wrote: post #29
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has adblocked everything since my teenage years, the whole ad industry seems to be making orders of magnitude more money than it should. I just don't understand how anyone comes to buy things shown in ads. Are ads really effective? I don't buy advertised products. Do we really trust ad tech accounting? They've been caught inflating numbers over and over again. The whole house of cards seems like it cou…

If Google’s ad business dries up, what do you think they will pivot to? It scares me to think about what a desperate company with that much data would do.

They have lots of cash but a pretty high burn rate too. Google has lots and lots of fat they could cut. Guess it would really matter how quickly the advertising business died as to whether or not they'd survive long enough to do something monumentally evil.

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#64

Post by VBprogrammer »

gesman wrote: post #58
fnord77 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just out of curiosity, what are some specific advertising techniques that work consistently?

Brand awareness ads. Pretty much it’s irrelevant what you say about brand ‘X’ as long as you bombard gullible observer with ‘X’. Then buying ‘X’ would be more familiar choice for millions than buying ‘Y’ or ‘Z’.

I'm not saying you are wrong but brand awareness ads are, if I'm reading correctly, exactly the kind of wasted ad money the parent was talking about. They are the cluster bombs of the advertising world.

I think the Parent was actually advocating surgical PPC management of the style patio11 has written about extensively.

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#65

Post by SXX »

muratsu wrote: post #10
ben_jones wrote: post #3

I wonder how google handles vpn users, particularly in countries where vpns are fairly ubiquitous like China or even Iran. If someone in Turkey is clearly identified as a Turkish user despite having a vpn in the United States, I shouldn’t be charged for them right?

You might be technically right but Google is incentivized to charge you. Also, it's probably really hard (technically) to resolve your real identity.

It is super simple for Google to resolve real identify of most of users and fraudsters. At least there absolutely no justification for Google not to detect fraud in cases where OP could do it using his own statistics.

Your browser by default leak your OS version (Chinese using older versions very often), locale (of course there is tons of users with Thai or Turkish locale outside of their home country, right?), fonts, etc, etc. Basically everything is can be used and actually actively used for fingerprinting. In cases of some proxies WebRTC can just leak your real IP. I wont even start on the fact that Google controls web browser that is used by 50% internet users and it's sent a lot of data to the mothership.

And yeah if you try to mess with Google itself by let's say mass registering accounts you'll understand how good they are at protecting their own infrastructure and money. At the same time why should they care about someone else lost money? So they don try to fix it.

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#66

Post by godtoldmetodoit »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #64
gesman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brand awareness ads. Pretty much it’s irrelevant what you say about brand ‘X’ as long as you bombard gullible observer with ‘X’. Then buying ‘X’ would be more familiar choice for millions than buying ‘Y’ or ‘Z’.

I'm not saying you are wrong but brand awareness ads are, if I'm reading correctly, exactly the kind of wasted ad money the parent was talking about. They are the cluster bombs of the advertising world. I think the Parent was actually advocating surgical PPC management of the style patio11 has written about extensively.

Branding is a moat. There's a reason Coke and Pepsi spend hundreds of millions on branding ads and I am sure they know there is a ROI there.

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#67

Post by [deleted] »

baddox wrote: post #23
appleiigs wrote: post #7

If I am in Turkey and I google “chicken USA”, I should get shown chicken ads from the USA. And when I click, those chicken producers should pay.

There’s a difference between publishing ads for a product that is related to US chicken and publishing ads in the US for chicken. I believe it’s clear in the Google publisher dashboard that you are targeting your ads to appear to people in the US, not that your product itself is relevant to the topic of the United States.

[deleted]

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#68

Post by appleiigs »

rtpg wrote: post #16
appleiigs wrote: post #7

If I am in Turkey and I google “chicken USA”, I should get shown chicken ads from the USA. And when I click, those chicken producers should pay.

If you hired an ad agency to run radio commercials in Texas and then get a bill saying "oh by the way we found cheap ad space in Tokyo so ran some there too, here's the bill", you'd probably question your relationship with them. I understand it's not the same thing, but it sure smells the same

The blog author didn't read the docs. He signed up for a relationship and just assumed it would be different and now he's complaining about it. As I mentioned in another comment: From Google AdWords help docs it says "By default, location targeting includes both physical locations and locations of interest".

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#69

Post by WillPostForFood »

soraminazuki wrote: post #55
oceliker wrote: post #32

I'm somewhat confused here. I live in the US but regularly visit Turkey to see family (say, once a year). I also regularly Google things related to the US when I'm there. Clicks outside the US are not necessarily meaningless -- the screenshot in the article shows that they are targeting people "regularly in the US". Just because I left for a couple of weeks does not mean I abandoned everything related to where I live…

The default option says that it targets "people in, or show interest in , your targeted location." The author tightened the settings only after he realized the clicks came from outside the US. Also, it's unnatural that multiple clicks from the same location were made in a quick succession.

The author tightened the settings only after he realized the clicks came from outside the US

It is worse than that, the country targeting setting was already at maximum tightness. This is a very bad dark pattern by Google, there is no setting to strictly target a country.

https://miro.medium.com/max/1048/1*5I7qjuarkWtiNltBdR1Quw.pn...

Re: Google AdWords charged me for clicks in Istanbul while location-targeting the US

#70

Post by appleiigs »

tehwebguy wrote: post #6

Google bundles bad clicks like a pile of stinking, rotten subprime mortgages and then peppers them with some good clicks and sells them to you like JP Morgan in 2005. Did you read the fine print? Doesn’t matter, you can’t redline it anyway so it’s take it or leave it.

The guy didn't read any print, not just the fine print. From Google AdWords help docs it says "By default, location targeting includes both physical locations and locations of interest"

When it says "location of interest" someone in Turkey can be interested products or services in the US.

The article even says itself that he didn't click on the advanced features until he asked his friend, after the clicks from Turkey. This is totally the user not reading the docs... and he used to work there... in that group for 2 years?

Also, Google and Google Adwords is heavily biased to be about relevancy, not mechanical-like billboard. Shouldn't be a surprise.

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