Live data from Hacker News

How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

blog.buysellads.com

11–19 of 19 posts

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#11
post #9

in theory i don't have a problem with these minority report scenarios. i do think at some point advertisers need to stop thinking with their proverbial dicks and start thinking about dinner and chocolates. there's a reason i didn't get that leather jacket, just like there's a reason you're not getting laid on the first date. continuing to ask me won't help.

"Fetchback, a retargeting ad platform claims that 2010 Valentines Day advertisers received a 600% or higher return on investment. They also claim that, in general, retargeting can perform 74% better than a standard pay-per-click campaign." Seems like it works better. I agree that the probability of you buying a jacket given that you visited the website and didn't buy is lower than the probability of you buying a jack…

re-targeting probably works better in the scenario where you have an impending date for purchase (Valentine's Day gift/card)... so knowing holidays and the SO's bday, wedding date, etc, would be extremely powerful for re-targeting.

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#12

One of the disadvantages of traditional ad media is the lack of a negative feedback mechanism to the advertiser from the consumer. This wastes advertiser money and consumer time and goodwill. But with the web, there's no excuse not to have this. In a recent example, Yahoo News has been displaying an ad for Allstate Insurance containing lots of motion. Once or twice, fine. But after dozens of times, it's sufficiently…

Interactive Advertising? The problem is, people generally don't want ads, so you're looking at a largely negative feedback base.

How do you sort the signal from the noise?

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fetchback, a retargeting ad platform claims that 2010 Valentines Day advertisers received a 600% or higher return on investment. They also claim that, in general, retargeting can perform 74% better than a standard pay-per-click campaign." Seems like it works better. I agree that the probability of you buying a jacket given that you visited the website and didn't buy is lower than the probability of you buying a jack…

haha, yes, agreed. no doubt the % return is higher than pitching me a product i've never seen. my point is more along the lines of, i'd like to see ads serve me a little better rather than serve the advertiser. the priorities are advertiser > site > buyer. should be opposite.

I think most if not all of the time they are serving you the best possible ad they can come up with.

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#14
post #12

One of the disadvantages of traditional ad media is the lack of a negative feedback mechanism to the advertiser from the consumer. This wastes advertiser money and consumer time and goodwill. But with the web, there's no excuse not to have this. In a recent example, Yahoo News has been displaying an ad for Allstate Insurance containing lots of motion. Once or twice, fine. But after dozens of times, it's sufficiently…

Interactive Advertising? The problem is, people generally don't want ads, so you're looking at a largely negative feedback base. How do you sort the signal from the noise?

The signal is weak but extremely detectable.

It's exactly like the signal for a positive response; in general, click through rates for various things are around one or two tenths of a percent. If Ad A is getting a tenth of a percent and Ad B is getting two tenths of a percent, Ad B is clearly way better.

If 99.5% of people give negative feedback for Ad A, and 99.8% of people give negative feedback for Ad B, then Ad A is clearly way better.

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#15
post #2

One thing I haven't seen mentioned about retargeting is that it can also keep potential customers from seeing competitors' ads for a few days after visiting your site.

Not quite keep customers from seeing ANY competitor ads. The amount of inventory that retargeting networks can bid on or buy from is limited so not all ad spaces that a potential customer sees are available to bid on. Also doesn't make sense for most networks to do so if they are getting paid on a CPC or CPA basis and buying on a CPM (as most do).

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#16

I don't really care about retargeting in the current sense, but I would advise BuySellAds to PLEASE proofread what you post. Many typographical errors to be found on that page.

Also, what's the deal with that stock images that doesn't add anything but noise?

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#17

in theory i don't have a problem with these minority report scenarios. i do think at some point advertisers need to stop thinking with their proverbial dicks and start thinking about dinner and chocolates. there's a reason i didn't get that leather jacket, just like there's a reason you're not getting laid on the first date. continuing to ask me won't help.

ad network guy here...

Yes, with retargeting you hit a lot of people that aren't interested in the product, but you also hit a lot of people that are lukewarm to warm leads. We're talking about the difference between, say, .05% CTR running ads in a content category versus .1%+ with retargeting across ad exchanges.

Specifics vary between advertisers: try visiting Shopify and you're going to see their ads 10x+ per day every day for a month... but less aggressive retargeting frequency (1-3x/day) is used all the time.

Re: How Do People Feel About Retargeting?

#18

in theory i don't have a problem with these minority report scenarios. i do think at some point advertisers need to stop thinking with their proverbial dicks and start thinking about dinner and chocolates. there's a reason i didn't get that leather jacket, just like there's a reason you're not getting laid on the first date. continuing to ask me won't help.

There's an old advertising maxim that a potential customer needs to see an ad 7 times (or 3 times) before acting on it, but it seems to be only weakly supported by statistics. Maybe it's just something they say to get you to buy more advertising, but it does seem to make sense that repetition would increase the effectiveness of your advertising (remember the Head-On commercials? apply directly to the forehead!).
Post reply on HN