New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads • Hacker News Board

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#221

Post by jariel » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #31

gtufano wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless, you know, by buying ads on snowboarding gear focused sites, as the industry has done for decades in the print industry.

This is the thing that “ad tech” people never want to acknowledge (because it makes their “secret sauce” a lot less valuable). Not only would there be zero tracking required to show content-relevant ads, there’s zero creep factor. No one questions seeing an ad for a new blender or an online grocer when looking at a recipe site, there’s no question why you’re seeing those ads. Seeing ads about something very specific…

"You mean, we can actually buy ads on Snowboarding Websites, or in Print Magazines? We never thought of that, thanks for the deep insight HN commenter! Now the 'secret sauce' of digital advertisers is out of the bag! Right here on HN!"

I've been skiing all of my life and I've never bought a 'skiing magazine' and never visited a skiing website as far as I can mention.

(It's not 'creepy' to get ads for Snowboarding when you're on Twitter, than it is for anything else.)

There are very, very few venues for smaller companies to get the word out - the more efficient those communications channels, the better the products and services we would receive.

There is a massive 'mismatching' problem in modern economies, wherein consumer interests are not met by makers, because the 'matching', if you will is poor. If we could permanently line up people's interests with the right services and products at the right prices, unemployment would cater to zero.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#222

Post by amelius » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

You never felt creeped out by personalized ads? I.e. you search for X on website number 1, then visit totally unrelated website number 2 and get an ad for X?

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#223

Post by mostlysimilar » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:49 PM UTC

ubercow13 wrote: post #204

Fernicia wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticism like this essentially boil down to the adverts not being targeted enough. Lumping you in the wrong group, not knowing enough about your intentions, etc.

If targeted ads are no better, and maybe even worse, than untargeted ads, that doesn't imply you need more targeting. Maybe it implies targeting doesn't work (at least for the purpose of providing ads the user wants to see). I prefer contextual ads, ie. related to what I'm currently looking at, not what my ad profile thinks my personality is based on something unrelated I did on another device last week.

> I prefer contextual ads, ie. related to what I'm currently looking at, not what my ad profile thinks my personality is based on something unrelated I did on another device last week.

That would be my preference for browsing the web, or looking at results of a search. But what about the ads that rely on doom-scrolling? The ones that are inserted every two posts on a Facebook feed would be hard to make contextual, for example.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#224

Post by m12k » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #217

>But being the most popular mobile ecosystem I keep seeing quote similar to this about Apple's iOS being so popular, yet the numbers clearly show that Android devices/users out number iOS. Are they saying that even with those numbers, Android is unpopular and people would rather be an iOS user? Is the price point whats preventing them?

Yeah, calling it the most popular requires defining popular in a rather unconventional manner... That said, as a data point, a handful of years ago I saw a report that the average iOS user generally had a quite a bit more purchasing power than the average Android user, so despite making up quite a bit less than 50% of the mobile market, iOS users actually come closer to making up 50% of the market that most advertisers care about reaching. I don't know if this is outdated these days, with more high-end Android phones than in the early days, but it still fits my anecdotal experience of Android phones being given to children as their first phone, and cheap Android phones being very popular in developing countries.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#225

Post by ssharp » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #162

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

If personalized ads meant ads that were actually good recommendations for products I could be interested in and would be grateful to be informed about the existence of - maybe. The reality of it is that personalized ads are mostly just ads from those with the money and demographics info to stalk me around the internet - e.g. webshops running after me, believing that I abandoned my shopping cart simply because I got d…

The ad platforms have very clear incentives to deliver the ads that perform best for marketers so that the marketers spend more with the ad platform.

As much as you think the ads are doing a poor job, they're likely doing a better job in aggregate than alternatives.

Retargeting ads deliver higher value than prospecting ads so that's likely why you get so many more of those.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#226

Post by jariel » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

simiones wrote: post #79

jariel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations are always so one-sided on HN. Not only is 're-targeting' immensely useful, it absolutely increases conversions. Targeting in general helps quite a lot. Ad targeting is the opposite of evil, it actually increases relevance by a significant degree, and increases market efficiency, wherein surpluses go to both sides. There's a huge market for products and services out there and it's getting harder t…

> increases market efficiency This is manifestly false. An efficient market based on rational consumers doesn't require advertising. Advertising serves to skew consumer opinion away from rational behavior (in the economic sense of maximizing utility divided by price), so in fact it can be argued that it will always make the market LESS efficient. An ideal consumer would browse the market and read non-paid reviews, an…

This is completely false and implies lack of understanding of market dynamics.

It's also insulting to the reality of any person or group who's actually created a business, and wants to get the word out about their product - as if the word magically just 'finds out' about it.

I'm shocked at the level of anti-knowledge and anti- rationalism on a forum of such intelligent people.

Of course advertising can 'skew' people's emotions, nobody doubts inefficiencies. If there were no ads, it would be tantamount to the banking disaster - it would go down like dominos.

Targeted ads are the only hope for a lot of small companies playing into long niches, as I say, without them, you get Nike, Apple and Ford for everything.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#227

Post by ebg13 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

> But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized?

I looked online at mattress once. I did some research, made a decision, and even bought one. And then for the next month at least everywhere I looked was MATTRESSES! DO YOU LIKE MATTRESSES? HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS THING CALLED MATTRESSES? HEY MAYBE YOU WANT MATTRESSES! GET MATTRESSES HERE! Like, mfer, I already bought my mattress. Step off.

[edit] I guess someone out there _really_ likes mattress ads.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#228

Post by jariel » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #71

jariel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conversations are always so one-sided on HN. Not only is 're-targeting' immensely useful, it absolutely increases conversions. Targeting in general helps quite a lot. Ad targeting is the opposite of evil, it actually increases relevance by a significant degree, and increases market efficiency, wherein surpluses go to both sides. There's a huge market for products and services out there and it's getting harder t…

A few weeks ago my TV set died, so I bought a new one. At the same time I looked for a new motorcycle helmet. Since then I get tons of adds for TV's and motorcycle helmets that are not available to buy in my country. Useless like a nail in the foot. I never buy something suggested by an ad even if I need such a product, so the ad industry is a huge waste of time, money and neurons. Oh, and for some stupid reason Goog…

"I never buy something suggested by an ad "

Many people think this, it's rarely actually true.

Have a look at the things you buy, you'll remember you've seen ads for them at some point. Now the question is - how much self awareness does it take to make the material connection between those things?

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#229

Post by egypturnash » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

kin wrote: post #141

I have a serious question. Obviously if one were to choose between an ad-free experience and an ad-full experience, one would choose ad-free. But, if ads were needed for monetization, wouldn't you choose personalized vs non-personalized? Personally, I would go with personalized because a non-personalized experienced usually has no relevancy and frankly it is inefficient use of money in this world. From there, it real…

I’ll take non-personalized, thanks. I don’t want advertisers sitting there making profiles about me that include everything they can guess.

Re: New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

#230

Post by stephenr » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #221

stephenr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing that “ad tech” people never want to acknowledge (because it makes their “secret sauce” a lot less valuable). Not only would there be zero tracking required to show content-relevant ads, there’s zero creep factor. No one questions seeing an ad for a new blender or an online grocer when looking at a recipe site, there’s no question why you’re seeing those ads. Seeing ads about something very specific…

"You mean, we can actually buy ads on Snowboarding Websites, or in Print Magazines? We never thought of that, thanks for the deep insight HN commenter! Now the 'secret sauce' of digital advertisers is out of the bag! Right here on HN!" I've been skiing all of my life and I've never bought a 'skiing magazine' and never visited a skiing website as far as I can mention. (It's not 'creepy' to get ads for Snowboarding whe…

> I've been skiing all of my life and I've never bought a 'skiing magazine' and never visited a skiing website as far as I can mention.

If you never visit skiing websites (and thus presumably also never search for skiing websites), and the likes of Google showed you an ad for ski gear, that would be the epitome of creepy.

> It's not 'creepy' to get ads for Snowboarding when you're on Twitter, than it is for anything else.

If you follow/view a bunch of skiing related accounts, its not unrealistic. If you don't follow/view any ski related accounts, then again, that is very creepy.

But twitter is essentially the model we're talking about: show the visitor ads based on what they choose to view (mostly, afaik), not based on what they searched for last week on a different site.

> the more efficient those communications channels, the better the products and services we would receive.

Well while we're using anecdotal evidence, I've never seen an ad and thought "yeah that's actually just what I want, ". If I want something, I got search for it specifically.