Ask HN: Does targeted advertising work at all?

Since everybody on HN never ever sees an ad, much less would actively buy something based on one, let me confess to having spent thousands of dollars on products seen in ads.

For example, I have many pairs of awesome Portuguese shoes, and I originally found this vendor via their Facebook feed ad. That’s over $1000 of revenue over several years from a targeted ad which (I assume) cost them a dollar when I clicked on it.

I’m genuinely happy I saw that ad and found a shoemaker I like without having to research it.

Ads within the FB app still remain much more relevant than the stuff Google shows me on third party sites, which is much more random and often an eyesore. (Yes, I know nobody on HN uses the FB app either. What can I say: I joined at the age of 38 and was surprised that I genuinely like browsing FB because it’s so chill, just old friends and relatives. Nobody is angry or picking a fight, unlike Twitter where that’s 50% of the traffic.)

I just don't see how you actually know you're going to get a good quality product without research. Since you have to research to know if the product seen in an advertisement is good anyway, if you do your research well you will come out of it with some good quality products in mind, and can then simply search for vendors. Nobody ever puts the negatives in their ads - why would they - so at best they're triggers to buy a product you probably don't need (after all, otherwise if you needed it you wouldn't wait for an advertisement, you'd be researching, or just buying whatever was at the top of the online store.)

Basically I don't see how a targeted advertisement ever helps me. I find myself in these scenarios:

- I need a product, say a new pair of shoes. Since I need these, for example in the situation where my current shoes are literally falling apart of inadequate for the weather, I will simply start doing research, asking people, etc. I don't need targeted ads here, and they don't target me based on product quality, so there's no point paying attention to them anwyay.

- I don't need a product: well, then I don't need an ad for it either.

- I'd like a product, say a new luxury pair of shoes I don't need. Well, why should I trust an ad? Upon seeing an ad I'll just go and research it anyway, since again, nobody will list the negatives of their own product in any advertisement.

- I need a product, but am unaware it exists: the only area where a targeted advertisement really makes sense, since it saves me time (I don't know I should be researching it because I'm unaware it exists). But, uh, I've literally never had this happen ever in my life, and I'd be curious if anyone has any examples.

YouTube ads are so well targeted for me that I almost regret upgrading to Premium. If I had the time I would toggle the option to see the ads. I used to spend way too much time watching all the ads before the content.

What on earth did the ad say that convinced you "I want to buy shoes from some random Portuguese company online?" What did the ad look like? What did it claim?

I have no idea why I would trust that company to deliver a product on par with, let alone better, than my current shoe supplying options.

I also wonder if you're in the EU or not, as that changes the story. But I understand a lot of people wouldn't want to say on a forum.

Yes, yes they absolutely do, although not quite at the levels and extent you might think. I worked with an ad network DSP, who's entire business was figuring out what crap to put in front of what users.

All I'll say is that they used pretty low down ways to get to people, one example that sticks out was the amount of targeting that went on late Friday, late Saturday night in APAC when folks would stumble home drunk and go online.

Everything and the kitchen sink was thrown at these people, and it often resulted in multi thousand dollar sales, including a few automobiles!