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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?

#51

Post by Gustomaximus »

The ads you are talking about are called "remarketing".

Generally they work very well, better than audience category targeting. To work the best you have to set them up so.

If they are following you post purchase it often (but not always) means the marketing personal have not built a negative audience on a purchase confirmation flag to exclude this behaviour.

It may or may not matter depending on the ad pricing. Some ads you only pay on a click, others on views shown. Obviously the latter wastes more money while if click cost its not such a problem however if volume is great enough to effect your ads likelihood of being clicked it might effect how the ad network displays your campaign.

Basically ads are only as good as the product & implementation. And without trying to sound elitist many of the people setting up and running these campaigns are less technical than they should be and a bit useless at their job. In the same way there are amazing coders vs guys that do the bare minimum pasting other people's scripts as all they can do.

Odds are these campaigns are still making money overall on following the people that didn't initially convert so the companies are happy to keep them running as is.

TL:dr Most likely the ad manger has done a poor setup in remarketing.

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

#52

Post by kcplate »

lordkrandel wrote: post #11

To 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…

Doesn’t matter if you buy, advertising is as much about creating brand and product awareness. You see my company name enough in a favorable ad, you create a positive association in your mind eventually.

Sometimes it takes years…

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

#53

Post by paulcole »

alexb_ wrote: post #12
paulcole wrote: post #7

Yes! I have hardly any friends on Facebook and I never post, but I only use it for the ads. I learn about tons of clothes companies and sales on stuff I like.

This is the most bizarre use of Facebook I've ever heard of

I love catalog shopping. Facebook is like that but even better!

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

#54

Post by kcplate »

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…

>Except Oatly.

Reminds me of this scene from Pirates of the Caribbean..

Norrington : You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of! Jack Sparrow : But you have heard of me.

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

#55

Post by soared »

kcplate wrote: post #49
soared wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I suppose it’s probably worth rephrasing as every major brand I’ve worked with, in that case :). Unfortunate to hear that but I guess not surprising

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

#56

Post by guyomes »

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…

> I've tried pretty much every brand I can find at local stores, and some that I have to order online [...] I've actually tried it at a friend's house recently, and really enjoyed it.

Aggressive subway advertising can indeed be annoying, yet it has been quite efficient in this case: the milk of a brand advertised in the subway of a big city just got mentioned in a positive way on a tech website read worldwide.

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

#57

Post by anothernewdude »

soared wrote: post #34
mikewarot wrote: post #19

Earlier 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…

> Do you think Nike would be happy if their vendor just said, “yeah everything drives positive lift”.

No, which is why advertisers are theatre.

Many large businesses have entirely halted online advertising and found little effect, but much saved money.

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

#58

Post by analog31 »

nlh wrote: post #40

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 h…

>>> 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.

I don't doubt that advertising works on me at some level. This is all the more reason to limit my own exposure to it. I'm one of those people who reacts with surprise and revulsion when we see what the Web looks like with ads.

>>> Which is why you experience things like weird retargeting on things you've already boight.

My favorites so far are the e-mails I get from online vendors, that say things like:

"People who bought shoes have also bought these items..."

"Here are some things to go with your batteries..."

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

#59

Post by Tomte »

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…

My standard response to this: Prior purchases do have predictive power. They can very well be positively correlated to further purchases.

I've often bought stuff that didn't work for some reason. It was broken, or it had something that was bothering me. Maybe the power adapter was annoyingly loud (looking at you, Kyocera).

So I sent it back. But before I managed to go to the postal office a few days later I was already searching for a replacement online.

If I buy a TV set, I have indicated that I need/want a TV set. The rate of returns is broadly known (and maybe even specifically for me the return rate is known).

So Amazon et. al. do well to recommend similar stuff or things from the exact same product category to me.

Even right after I have bought a graphics tablet I'm infinitely more likely to buy a graphics tablet tomorrow, compared to my parents who have never bought one in their lives, and never will.

Or maybe the new TV turns out to be great, and I realize it would be nice to have a second one in my sleeping room, and why not buy a third one for the bathroom? ;-)

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

#60

Post by Psychlist »

nlh wrote: post #40

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 h…

> Claim "Ads don't work on me! I never buy things based on ads!". The thing is, they're all wrong.

All you've said is "A big industry does this. Therefore it works on everyone".

Which doesn't follow at all. The industry doesn't have to work on everyone to be profitable, and could operate effectively even knowing that. Whether they'd be able to take peoples' money as effectively if they said "our ads work on 73% of people, making them 0.45% more likely to buy the advertised product"... doesn't matter.

The existence of whales on the online gaming market suggests a counter-strategy might be more effective: some people are very, very susceptible to ads. Targetting them is likely to be both cheaper and more effective than trying to get the attention of people who are minimally affected by ads.

It's hardly shocking news that the advertising industry might lie, though. To the clients as well as their targets.

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