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Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

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Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#331

Post by matheusmoreira »

janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

> I guess you could call this a form of censorship. Content gets suppressed, simply because it doesn't generate enough ad revenue.

Absolutely. I've seen entire websites completely reinvent themselves because someone complained to Google about some "offensive" page and got their ads pulled. Stuff I used to like got deleted because of advertisers.

If this "sanitized advertiser friendly web" is the future, I'd rather not have a web at all.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#332

Post by lwb »

cm2012 wrote: post #116

I own an advertising agency. I've tracked ios impressions % over time on all of our remarketing campaigns (as a proxy), its down about 30% from peak and stabilized. Not a huge deal. LOL at this below: "Seufert estimated that in the first full quarter users see the prompt, the iOS changes could cut Facebook’s revenue by 7% if roughly 20% of users agree to be tracked. If just 10% of users grant Facebook tracking permis…

> FB revenue is going to be up in Q3, not down, would bet $10k on that.

Why?

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#333

Post by skinkestek »

nemothekid wrote: post #326
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #12

Even with all the tracking, the generated ads still suck, showing things already purchased. This reminds me of the overhyped lead generation tools out there, they do not work as expected. Someone's financial interest is the root cause here, someone is making good money with ads. The ones who sell ads? For sure. The ones who buy adds? Not many success stories out there.

> The ones who buy adds? Not many success stories out there. It's hard to believe the economy is dumping almost 100B/year into a product that doesn't work.

Snake oil salespersons can sell to companies as well.

Seing how massively even Google have mistargeted me and lots and lots of others I'm even sure it is a fluke anymore:

AFAIK Google sells ads not by the click anymore but by the impression. Now, how do you maximize revenue? You show the most expensive ad to as many people as possible.

A little (ok, a lot) of fudging here and there and I am a target demographic for shady dating sites / mail order brides / senior dating / gay cruises for 13 consecutive years.

Was it ever relevant to me? No way. I even repeatedly reported those ads.

Does relevant ads exist? As Facebook has proven a few times: yes.

Did Google earn a lot from them? Probably yes.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#334

Post by jensensbutton »

fairity wrote: post #249
cfjgvjh wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If widely circulated, this could be wielded to some effect in a campaign by FB detractors/rivals. But who are the FB ads rivals that aren't affected in a similar manner by this change? Since the tracking permission isn't specific to FB, wouldn't other players with a similar business model also be negatively impacted?

> But who are the FB ads rivals that aren't affected in a similar manner by this change? Google. Apple's privacy changes restrict tracking from within mobile apps like Facebook and Instagram. Google is primarily browser-based and remains largely unaffected.

No they don't. They only prevent tracking _across_ apps. Facebook will track everything you do and show you just as many ads in their properties as they did before. This really does harm smaller companies more than Facebook.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#335

Post by bookofsand »

samizdis wrote: post #202

[Eric] Seufert [a mobile analyst who writes the Mobile Dev Memo trade blog] estimated that in the first full quarter users see the prompt, the iOS changes could cut Facebook’s revenue by 7% if roughly 20% of users agree to be tracked. If just 10% of users grant Facebook tracking permission, revenue could be down as much as 13.6%, according to his models. If those figures are even near the ballpark, this would surely…

According to a sibling comment, ">60% of Facebook's revenue is from iOS". Our society is selling out on privacy and subjecting itself to mass 24/7 surveillance for a paltry 22.5% of Facebook / adtech revenue. In other words, we could outlaw user tracking tomorrow, and Facebook / adtech would continue just fine, with only a moderate haircut. Are we that desperate to milk the last possible $ right now?!

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#336

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

> Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But...

You don't even need your "but" (so hold on to it), because this is a classic false dichotomy anyway. Targeting does not require spying nor does spying tend to improve targeting. Basic immediate context (what you're doing, not who you are) works better for both advertisers and willing consumers than personally invasive intrusion does.

You should rather ask whether they prefer relevant ads that put them at risk by aggregating everything about their lives into databases that regularly get breached or relevant ads that don't put them at risk. They can get relevant ads either way. They've just been sold a bill of goods on the need for personal invasion to do it.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#337

Post by adtechperson »

subsubzero wrote: post #291

It isn't just facebook that will see this decline, they are the bellwether in social media so to speak since they are the largest player. Expect an across the board drop in revenue for social media and any company that uses ads and tracking of users behavior as its primary form of income. Hopefully this will signal a pivot in ad tracking and lead more companies to try subscription based services.

I have worked in ad tech for a while and I am not sure that I really believe a lot of this article.

I am not quite sure what advertisers are complaining about. Facebook should still be able to track purchases of physical goods, since most of those will require an email address and facebook can use that to link up the sales.

Web site retargeting is not really affected by this. I guess people using shopping apps would be impacted, but a lot of those folks will be logged in and trackable. This article references "Most retail websites" but they are not affected by the recent change (ITP does affect them, but that is not new).

App downloads are probably much less trackable and that would definitely be affected.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#338

Post by jensensbutton »

cm2012 wrote: post #116

I own an advertising agency. I've tracked ios impressions % over time on all of our remarketing campaigns (as a proxy), its down about 30% from peak and stabilized. Not a huge deal. LOL at this below: "Seufert estimated that in the first full quarter users see the prompt, the iOS changes could cut Facebook’s revenue by 7% if roughly 20% of users agree to be tracked. If just 10% of users grant Facebook tracking permis…

Lot of people who were hoping for Facebook's demise are going to be sorely disappointed this year.

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#339

Post by bquest2 »

kzrdude wrote: post #329
LorenPechtel wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random ads are effectively noise. Targeted ads occasionally are of value. If there's going to be an ad, better it be a targeted one. I also have no problem with companies tracking for the purpose of seeing which ads work. I do *not* like the retargeting ads--if I didn't buy the item there's a reason! Either I didn't want it or I'm waiting for a better price, neither of which you're going to solve unless you're tellin…

Ads should be targeted to the content, not the recipient IMO. If you're reading about California wine in an article, advertise based on that - travel, wine, whatever.

But surely, there are car enthusiasts who read about cars that would never read an article about California wine, but would benefit from knowing about it.

In your world, that person misses out on the pleasures of california wine

Re: Facebook users said no to tracking, and now advertisers are panicking

#340

Post by nkingsy »

janpot wrote: post #165

Often I hear the argument, people saying "I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads". But the result of the tracking is not only that you get "relevant" ads, it's that your timelines and your feeds and your news gets tweaked in ways that makes you engage with ads as much as possible. Not only do you get manipulated in buying stuff you didn't ask for (ads in general). You're also getting spoonfed content t…

I don’t necessarily think engagement is the wrong metric, and I don’t mind some personalized tracking of that engagement to increase ad revenue.

The issue is allowing any old engagement.

I’d like to see the hacker news system scaled.

Some things that could make moderators actions go further to keep the cost down:

- outrage detection: before you hit post, you’re warned that your possibly inflammatory post will be flagged for moderation.

-timeouts: if a moderator finds outrage or outrage bait in a post, the poster gets a seven day timeout (cannot log on). ANYONE who replied to or liked the offending post gets a one day timeout.

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