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Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

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Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#31

Post by [deleted] »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #26
lordkrandel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe I won't and go for the competitor... it often works this way. So many times I see something expensive being advertised and I go for a cheaper one I never heard of. So again, I might be a rare case, but ... I'm not saying that I never bought snacks that are also advertised, because everything is advertised. But I come from a "hard discount" family, and I'm a very hard target, I don't even like being given pre…

Exactly this for me, too. I make lattes and cappuccinos pretty often at home. I don't drink dairy milk, so I'm constantly on the lookout for decent alternative milk brands. I've tried pretty much every brand I can find at local stores, and some that I have to order online... Except Oatly. Because when I lived in NYC, their subway advertising was so aggressive, in your face, and annoying, I swore I'd never buy the pro…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#32

Post by Flowsion »

PrancingPony wrote: post #21
cercatrova wrote: post #6

Sure, I've definitely bought stuff before from targeted ads.

I have as well. I usually get pretty good ad recommendations on Instagram surprisingly enough.

I almost never pay attention to ads and have never purchased anything from ads.. until Instagram. The targeted ads on Instagram are unreal. They've shown me products from local creators/shop owners that there's no way I would have found otherwise.

I still get a lot of crappy ads and get bombarded with the same product I just purchased at times. But, it's by far the most customized/useful ad experience I've had.

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#33

Post by dylan604 »

pooper wrote: post #17
Syonyk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s hard to tell when someone has bought a product. How about, "I've literally got it in my last-day purchase history on eBay and they keep showing me the same thing and a bunch of related stuff to the item that hasn't even arrived yet, but that they've taken my money for"? ... and then eBay follows me around showing the same stuff on other sites. The thing I've purchased. From eBay. At least, they did, until I go…

A certain national bank which I shall not name had a banner on top of its app. The link opens a web page that goes to double click and then opens the bank's website. Why would a bank app take me through a double click link just to take me back to their own website? My guess is this is the same reason why eBay shows you ads for things you just bought. There are massive inefficiencies in these large organizations. I'm…

if it didn't do the round trip, it would leave a hole in the analytics. They get paid on the analytics, so the analytics must be kept whole

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#34

Post by soared »

mikewarot wrote: post #19
soared wrote: post #5

Yes. Brands, third parties, google, etc have all ran incremental sales lift tests, brand lift studies, customer lifetime value tests, etc and determined how successful tactics are and moved budget accordingly. There is a reason google/etc are worth billions. I’ve posted this comment before, but: 1. It’s hard to tell when someone has bought a product. You buy it at a reseller and the brand will never know. Or you buy…

It is entirely possible that large corporations measure the effectiveness of their advertising by comparing it to sales, and are confusing correlation with causation on a massive scale . They spend more on advertising, and point to sales in the same time frame, as a cause, even if reality disagrees. There are zero incentives for anyone to figure this out and fix it within corporate structures. I'd be thankful it make…

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Entire business are built on testing the effectiveness of online advertising, and providing that as a consulting device to brands. Do you think Nike would be happy if their vendor just said, “yeah everything drives positive lift”.

Nobody is confusing correlation and causation. These are rigorous studies completed by literal data scientists and statisticians. They are employed by neutral third parties who make money regardless of the outcome of the study, and showing positive outcomes where they do not occur would be hugely detrimental to their business.

And to your point, realizing advertising does not work happens all the fucking time. I see it literally all the time. It’s why you run studies. Then you take your budget, move it somewhere else, and run a test to see if it’s effective. Every major brand does it this way.

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#35

Post by mcculley »

lordkrandel wrote: post #22
donohoe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the thing, you probably have. There are ads that want you to buy something, and there are ads that, when you are making a choice between products, you’ll go with the brand you’re most familiar with. Ads build that familiarity.

Or maybe I won't and go for the competitor... it often works this way. So many times I see something expensive being advertised and I go for a cheaper one I never heard of. So again, I might be a rare case, but ... I'm not saying that I never bought snacks that are also advertised, because everything is advertised. But I come from a "hard discount" family, and I'm a very hard target, I don't even like being given pre…

Ads can also provide value when served to those who don’t buy. I would not buy a Rolex, but when I see someone wearing one, I know they have a lot of disposable money and dispose of it on things like Rolexes, which is what the buyer wants. The buyer is paying for the ads to convey the value to others.

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#36

Post by soared »

pooper wrote: post #17
Syonyk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s hard to tell when someone has bought a product. How about, "I've literally got it in my last-day purchase history on eBay and they keep showing me the same thing and a bunch of related stuff to the item that hasn't even arrived yet, but that they've taken my money for"? ... and then eBay follows me around showing the same stuff on other sites. The thing I've purchased. From eBay. At least, they did, until I go…

A certain national bank which I shall not name had a banner on top of its app. The link opens a web page that goes to double click and then opens the bank's website. Why would a bank app take me through a double click link just to take me back to their own website? My guess is this is the same reason why eBay shows you ads for things you just bought. There are massive inefficiencies in these large organizations. I'm…

In-app analytics is done through a “mobile measurement partner” which have limitations in tracking so sometimes you need workarounds like using a redirect.

Also likely the app is a totally different team and getting them to change a link is difficult, but giving them a link where the web team can change the redirect is easy.

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#37

Post by Rebelgecko »

What is the strongest signal that someone will be buying blinds the near future?

a) Someone recently bought blinds

b) Someone bought blinds 5 years ago

c) Someone hasn't bought blinds ever (maybe they're renting, or just tape newspaper to their windows)

Turns out, on average, the answer is a. Either because you're returning blinds you don't like and are in the market for replacements, or because you're doing a home remodel and once you fix up one window you'll need blinds for the next one. Even if most people who bought blinds won't be buying new ones in the next week, those are still better odds than advertising to someone who will never buy blinds in their entire life.

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#38

Post by codyb »

WalterBright wrote: post #14

I have ad blindness. I never see the ads. Even the floaters, I just look around them till they're gone. I do peruse ads in my muscle car magazines, because that's why I buy those magazines. I enjoy the ad placements in those car hotrodding TV shows, because I am interested in how to do the projects they're doing, and the stuff needed to do them. Amazon pushes ads to my kindle, but I couldn't tell you what they were f…

Yea, this is pretty much my experience. Just kinda… don’t really see them even when they’re there.

Still use ad blockers a lot of the time but that’s cause of the insidious tracking not cause I’m against advertising as a concept.

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#39

Post by soared »

Syonyk wrote: post #8
soared wrote: post #5

Yes. Brands, third parties, google, etc have all ran incremental sales lift tests, brand lift studies, customer lifetime value tests, etc and determined how successful tactics are and moved budget accordingly. There is a reason google/etc are worth billions. I’ve posted this comment before, but: 1. It’s hard to tell when someone has bought a product. You buy it at a reseller and the brand will never know. Or you buy…

> It’s hard to tell when someone has bought a product. How about, "I've literally got it in my last-day purchase history on eBay and they keep showing me the same thing and a bunch of related stuff to the item that hasn't even arrived yet, but that they've taken my money for"? ... and then eBay follows me around showing the same stuff on other sites. The thing I've purchased. From eBay. At least, they did, until I go…

This doesn’t seem like a genuine discourse, but purchase suppression can occur in batches. So that purchase data may not get fed back into all the advertising systems for days/weeks if it’s using a poor set up.

For example, sometimes for suppression brands literally just export a csv of customers and upload it to google. If your marketing guy does it once a week..

I’d assume eBay’s doesn’t work like that, but it’s possible. Also possible they just don’t suppress recently bought items !

Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

#40

Post by nlh »

Every time there's a thread on HN about advertising, there's at least a few comments (there are already some in this thread) that claim, loudly, "Ads don't work on me! I never buy things based on ads!".

The thing is, they're all wrong. Advertising is a trillion-dollar business because it works. The human mind is susceptible to suggestion, and it's been demonstrated over and over again for basically as long as we've had civilization.

What is ALSO true, however, is that ad dollars are exceeeeeedingly inefficiently deployed. Which is why you experience things like weird retargeting on things you've already boight. I experience this too -- there are several brands that for which I'm a happy paying customer and I still see their ads 1-2 times a day.

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