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New iOS privacy feature may end an era of personalized ads

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

#231
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.

Exactly. If I leave on personalization , I always fell like they will collect extra data, just for the sake of it.

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

#232
post #225
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honest question: Do retargeting ads just appear to perform better because I already had purchase intent and I was already going to go back there to buy it later anyway?

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

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly Instead of that they want to shove their new snowboard ads on every blog not connected to snowboarding you see because you searched "snow" once on Google

Or because you just bought a new snowboard on-line (and won't need another for years), so now you've got snowboard ads everywhere, despite being in the group of people least likely to need a new snowboard anytime soon.

My shopping habits must be somewhat unique on a local amazon-esque site that 80% of the time when I view something I have already bought (i.e. to check some detail before it arrives, or sometimes if I want to order more - I buy a decent amount of hardware and fittings for DIY projects on there) it has a little carousel at the bottom saying "Others who looked at this item also looked at:" and it's a list of 8 things, 7 of which I know I've looked at recently, or even bought.

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

#234
post #162
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…

So in a world where targeted ads are actually useful you would probably opt-in? Would you ever try something like this?

You'd take a survey about your interests and/or things you're in the market for then you would get a monthly email with a variety of targeted ads. Over a year ago I wrote down in my "ideas" notebook "privacy respecting opt-in email advertisements" but then when I looked at it again later on I thought "I don't think anyone would sign up for this" haha.

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

#235
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 want content-linked advertising. If I’m reading a music blog I want to see ads for bands and synths, not razors and wrenches. If I’m reading stackoverflow I’d be content to gloss over ads for text editors and web hosting. Not the same f*ing razor ad.

Call me old school (I’m a 70s baby, 80s child). I enjoyed the content-linked advertising in magazines. I actually read them and used them to learn the market around my interest.

Robot selected ads which follow me around claiming to know what I like based on interactions I had do all the following:

- creep me out because I know I’m being followed

- annoy Me by removing any semblance of my own agency in the event: at least with content-linked ads I have chosen to consume that content and I feel like I want to in that zone

- annoy me by getting me wrong

- annoy me by assuming I’m just like everyone else that ticked the same boxes/set the same flags

- annoy me by presenting mostly mainstream stuff rather than small-scale/artisan/bespoke/local stuff that would be much more interesting. I appreciate that this one ought to work better if the advertising host/network knew where I was browsing from (which is a step towards tracking)

The tracking and bidding has completely destroyed what was actually good about advertising for the consumer.

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

#236
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would probably always pick non-personalized, as my assumption is that the less relevant they are, the easiest it would become for me to ignore them (assuming they are not more intrusive than the personalized ones).

This isn't a scalable solution. If the value per ad decreases, services will need to display more til the user generates enough value to support the costs they incur. If TV was able to cater ads to individual viewers then ad breaks would be a lot shorter.

> This isn't a scalable solution.

I am not sure what your point is.

> If the value per ad decreases, services will need to display more til the user generates enough value to support the costs they incur.

What they need to do is to find a way to pay their bills. If ads allow them to do that then it's great (maybe non-personalized work well enough? Or contextual targeting, as others have suggested in this thread). If users cannot stand the increasing amount of ads then they will stop using their service. Or maybe these companies can adopt a mixed model where people can pay to not see the super intrusive ads, and everyone else gets the ads?

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

#237
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would probably always pick non-personalized, as my assumption is that the less relevant they are, the easiest it would become for me to ignore them (assuming they are not more intrusive than the personalized ones).

This isn't a scalable solution. If the value per ad decreases, services will need to display more til the user generates enough value to support the costs they incur. If TV was able to cater ads to individual viewers then ad breaks would be a lot shorter.

> If TV was able to cater ads to individual viewers then ad breaks would be a lot shorter.

Personalized ads is one of the 'features' of ATSC 3.0 whenever that finally rolls out: https://www.techhive.com/article/3268635/next-gen-tv-to-ushe...

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

#238
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So in a world where targeted ads are actually useful you would probably opt-in? Would you ever try something like this? You'd take a survey about your interests and/or things you're in the market for then you would get a monthly email with a variety of targeted ads. Over a year ago I wrote down in my "ideas" notebook "privacy respecting opt-in email advertisements" but then when I looked at it again later on I though…

. This idea goes in the right direction, in my views. I already sign ip to newsletters for things I want repeated reminders for, or updates about. If your service replaced newsletters, and could guarantee to work for things like ticket sales as well as commodity items, it might work.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree in principle, I don't think this is manageable given how diverse the content is on the Internet. What sort of thing are you going to sell me when I'm reading a news article about wars in the Middle East?

A subscription to Foreign Affairs Magazine A device on which to read articles about wars in the middle east An donation to Red Cross/Doctors without Borders/relevant charity

To continue adding:

Books on the history of the Middle East...

A Netflix documentary about the Middle East, offering a free Netflix trial if you want to watch it...

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, fo…

Reading that, I’m SO glad I left facebook.
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