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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

#361

Post by PaulHoule »

masswerk wrote: post #201
PaulHoule wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking is necessary for the advertising economy to control bad behavior on the part of publishers and advertisers, not just to serve targeted ads. No matter what there would be discrepancies in the numbers (publisher says it sent 75 clicks, advertiser says it got 70) and that breeds mistrust. Participants have a reason to lie. Having multiple third party watch the whole thing helps them trust each other.

This has been possible before. Google was built around content based advertising. Also, maybe click-through rates are not that important? Maybe exposure is a more decisive metric? As a side-effect, we may reduce social bubble effects and maybe even return to a shared reality? (Many of the unwanted effects of the Web are really due to targeted advertising and its consequences.)

Some kind of verification is necessary for impression-based advertising too.

For instance, there are discontents around Nielsen (they've had scandals in India, and I infuriate people in the TV industry with the suggestion that a Nielsen home got bribed to blast MTV in an empty room) but the participants believe in Nielsen: people know probability-based sampling basically works.

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

#362

Post by kstrauser »

axaxs wrote: post #356
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…

Do people really prefer relevant ads? I just disregard them, and it doesn't matter to me whether they are relevant or off the wall. The only ads I specifically don't like are the ones Youtube have randomly showed my wife and I. It's only happened twice to each of us, but they were a bit adult themed. Having a child in the house, I was pretty peeved.

I vastly prefer irrelevant ones. If I browse e-book readers because my coworkers were talking about them and I was curious about the current state of the art, I don't want ads to pester me into buying something I don't need. On the other hand, no amount of ads will manipulate me into buying diapers or a timeshare.

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

#363

Post by celestialcheese »

tyre wrote: post #281
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes so the e-commerce site knows purchasers come fro FB but FB doesn’t know the purchase was successful so can’t how the ad to more similar people.

Couldn’t Facebook include a parameter in the url that ties back to the click? Then the destination site just calls back to Facebook with that unique event id.

This is tracking within iOS apps, not the browser.

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

#364

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Auracle wrote: post #345
villasv wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer ads that are relevant for me over random ads I froze up the first time someone said this to me. Of course I prefer random ads, cause this way they're less likely to push the right buttons on my vulnerable monkey-ass brain. Do people think tailored ads are good for them instead of consumerism triggers? Messed up worldview.

I’m a photographer, and I right now I’m targeting local teenagers and their moms for high school senior portrait sessions. I would think they’d rather see that, be reminded it’s time to get them done, and possibly learn about a better photographer than seeing an ad for an ice cream maker or what have you.

In other words you want to manipulate them into buying something they wouldn’t have if they hadn’t seen your ad. That doesn’t sound like a good thing for the person on the other side of the transaction.

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

#365

Post by celestialcheese »

sharadov wrote: post #294

I have a friend who is a publisher and he's seeing the effect of these changes as we speak. FB allowed best user targeting. He believes the next quarter results are going to be a blow to FB.

With how expensive the CPMs I'm seeing on FB right now, I'd be surprised if next quarter results are bad.

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

#366

Post by air7 »

I dislike being tracked as much as the next guy, but I often wonder what "our" ideal end-game goal is? By "our" I mean the typical HN crowd that understands both the technological and the economical implications of this.

If we want top-grade products to remain available without a direct monetary transaction (i.e "free"), it seems we must give something that the product providers can turn into monetary value indirectly somehow. Yet it seems we are actively against any such options: We block ads guilt-free, we rally against any attempt at collecting valuable personal information even anonymously, we consider crypto mining in the background (which is basically paying via your electricity bill) borderline malware.

I am part of this "we", and yet I ask myself, what am I willing to give as indirect payment? What other options are there?

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

#367

Post by [deleted] »

rchaud wrote: post #245
Workaccount2 wrote: post #156

Alright HN, so what is the end game here? I'm sure some of you have some experience working in the "ad supported" space, and obviously most of the internet and many of its services run on the ad model. So where are we going to end up if there is a full on public distrust of the current ad model?

We go back to the stone age. Me make product ('content'). You want product. You pay money. Patreon, paid newsletters and paid news subscriptions are all mature industries now. Why do we act like the sky's going to fall if the spigot of useless memes, influencer primping and political propaganda gets turned off?

[deleted]

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

#368

Post by celestialcheese »

pier25 wrote: post #214
mehlmao wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is tracking users of other, non-Facebook apps. Apple's new feature allows users to deny Facebook that ability.

> Facebook is tracking users of other, non-Facebook apps. For example?

Anyone who advertises with FB sticks the FB pixel SDK in their app to track conversions and performance of their FB ad spend. This pixel tracks a lot and reports back to FB.

Most companies and apps advertise on FB.

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

#369

Post by tobr »

Tarsul wrote: post #352
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 in…

I'd have no problem telling advertisers that I am between 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers (if they did not have it yet) very much. So just ask your users to give some information and tell them how they will use it and maybe they will give it, but don't spy on your users every secret. But not Facebook. That ship has sailed. I can't and won't trust…

> 30-40 years old, male and live in a certain region. And that's information that would help advertisers

Region, sure, that makes sense for a local business. But targeting gender or age is discrimination.

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

#370

Post by thrtythreeforty »

nkingsy wrote: post #340
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 flag…

Why would I ever do anything but lurk in such a forum? The risk/reward ratio would be so out of whack that even if I wanted to learn something, I would rather not risk a drive-by ban if who I'm talking to turned out to make the moderator mad.
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