There are lots of companies that have no idea what they’re doing in terms of targeting and are just throwing away marketing dollars. The platforms are just extremely accessible to people with no knowledge of efficient targeting methods. They said, it can be done in a way that is extremely effective if you know what you’re doing.
Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
41–50 of 158 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#42What 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 r…
I often wonder how various products sort out on this question because while this example makes sense, other ones would not. A common example is ladders. I might buy more than one because you need two lengths, but I can't imagine many people are frequent return customers for ladders the way they may be for blinds, and I can't think of any instances where they would be back in the market for a ladder that are also realistic (e.g. probably not a lot of people buying all their friends new ladders).
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#43Every 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 h…
Ads don't work on me because I block all ads*. I sent through my wife's Instagram account earlier today (with her consent of course) and the amount of ads is mind boggling. Sometimes it's not easy to figure out what's an ad and what's not.
* where I can. I still struggle with "sponsored" content, or fake review sites. It's becoming harder and harder to figure out what isn't an ad, and I hate it. If I see a good review, I don't know if it isn't an ad. If I see a bad review, I don't know it's not a competitor's doing.
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#44I use an ad blocker so don't generally see ads. However, I own a Kindle Voyage which I use to read sci-fi and fantasy novels. I have not paid the extra $20 or whatever it is to disable the ads. The ads are definitely targeted, as I only see ads for books related to what I've already purchased and read. In fact, all I see is ads for books in the series I happen to be reading at the time. For example, I'm finally getti…
Amazon advertises and recommends with a notification books that I have already read on Kindle all the time. But they aren’t paying for these so not the same problem as the purchase based targeting.
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#45Earlier 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…
> Because no brand that spends that much on advertising can possibly be price-efficient for their actual product.
I believe that might not necessarily be true, in fact the opposite might be true.
A brand that can afford to spend a large amount of money on advertising cannot afford to sell bad products, as otherwise people would buy it once and then never again.
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#46To me, it's completely pointless. I don't buy from ads. Never ever. Not on Tv, not on the web. If something is advertised on me, I tend to hate it. I start my shopping on Amazon, then look for alternatives in shops I know, then compare the prices. Quit the phone, zap the TV, install an adblocker. Beware, I'm not saying I'm a robot, I just distaste the ad language, and prefer comparisons. Remember the Bill Hicks sketc…
This was pretty true for me till I started getting ReMarkable ads on Insta last year. It is exactly the sort of thing I like and after reading some HN pieces on it, I now own it. Still getting adverts for it in Insta.
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#47One more reason for why you’re seeing the same ads.
Buyer’s remorse and post-purchase confirmation: You’re seeing ads for products you bought because the brand or marketing team decided to spend some more money to have you avoid buyer’s remorse and to reaffirm to yourself that the purchase was a good one.
This may or may not work, depending on the person and the product, but some of these things are probably not measured well enough to decide who should see the same ad and who doesn’t need to.
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the most bizarre use of Facebook I've ever heard of
Actually it sounds brilliant. Certainly Facebook is a lousy way to actually have social connections. But using it as a coupon book is something it would be good at. Reminds me of the now-periodic posts on HN grousing about how bad Google has become. The complainers expect too much. Google is the modern Yellow Pages, or Computer Shopper. You use it for the ads (and SEO stuff). It’s good to look for the highest bidder…
Fuck it. Someone make a website that's sole purpose is to buy data from social media and then give you relevant ads. Literally no actual purpose other than that
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 a…
> Every major brand does it this way
This is not completely accurate in my experience. Some brands do, particularly emerging brands.
However, I can assure you there are a few major established brands that I could drop on here (but cannot due to NDAs) that everybody on HN regardless of their location worldwide would recognize. If I was to tell you the inner workings their marketing operations you would be surprised at the lack of measurement and analysis they actually perform on campaigns. The words “indiscriminate carpet bombing and assume the enemies are dead” are probably the best analogy I can think of to describe their efforts.
Re: Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?
#50I use an ad blocker so don't generally see ads. However, I own a Kindle Voyage which I use to read sci-fi and fantasy novels. I have not paid the extra $20 or whatever it is to disable the ads. The ads are definitely targeted, as I only see ads for books related to what I've already purchased and read. In fact, all I see is ads for books in the series I happen to be reading at the time. For example, I'm finally getti…
So In my experience on the advertiser side of these suggestion widgets—The algorithms generally aren’t all that smart behind them, and it’s possible in Amazon’s case the items you are getting recommended might have a different SKU number than the ones you have already bought, but of course it is the same author and genre to your reading interest. Doubt it’s looking at book title to be honest.