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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?

#91

Post by throwawaylinux »

boraoztunc wrote: post #88

Mostly no, it does not. Actually there is nothing wrong with targeted advertising, products and ads are meant to target specific people in its nature. But online advertising are a scheme for tech companies to make money. Adtech was created to make the buying and selling of online advertising so much more efficient. Today, about $350 billion dollars is spent on online advertising. 70%+ of it is bought programmatically…

I can't follow your comment. You say it doesn't work, then you say there's nothing wrong with it, then you list a bunch of things wrong with it. Also, a few things:

- Products and services are make to make money for their creators. They generally try to achieve that by creating something of value others will buy. So this isn't really an argument for or against it. A Prius works and it is a scheme for Toyota to make money.

- The fact not every ad is viewed doesn't mean it doesn't work. It's just the nature of the delivery. It could be a problem or inefficiency at least, but presumably it's factored into pricing. If one company figured out out how to reduce that waste, they should be able to charge more or take more market share.

Not to say it does work, but your post hasn't explained how it doesn't.

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

#92

Post by yosefjaved1 »

If you're doing this from a chrome browser that you're logged into, then it's the advertiser that is at fault. Clearly, if you bought the item, then they should now have you in their system as a conversion. With that information and you not clearing your cookies, they should have setup their campaign to not target you for the same item. It sounds like lazy advertisers.

To answer your initial question, it works and it works really well. As advertisers, we see a significant difference in sales when we don't advertise online. This is especially true for search advertising and retargeting. ToFu first touch display advertising doesn't necessarily work as a sale generator. It's the subsequent advertising / display retargeting we do afterwards that works. Unfortunately for advertisers, the days of doing the way we do things will come to an end with third party cookies essentially going away. It'll be interesting to see how digital advertising changes (specifically for open garden platforms like Google ads) without the third-party cookies.

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

#94

Post by anotherboffin »

HWR_14 wrote: post #89
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think selling things to people while they are drunk/high/otherwise is invalid. Otherwise Walmart would have to breathalyze visitors. However, it's massively, objectively, unequivocally unethical, and part of the reason I quit that place. And for the record, selling crap to drunk people in APAC was probably the least morally suspect tactic this company got up too.

Walmart will let you return an item the next day. Meanwhile, I believe that a contract signed while drunk would be unenforceable. What does the acronym APAC mean?

> What does the acronym APAC mean?

Asia-Pacific

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

#95

Post by throwawaylinux »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #37

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 r…

Where does this data come from?

What do you think if you included the option d) Someone recently made a search that included the word "blinds" ?

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

#96

Post by antisthenes »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #91
boraoztunc wrote: post #88

Mostly no, it does not. Actually there is nothing wrong with targeted advertising, products and ads are meant to target specific people in its nature. But online advertising are a scheme for tech companies to make money. Adtech was created to make the buying and selling of online advertising so much more efficient. Today, about $350 billion dollars is spent on online advertising. 70%+ of it is bought programmatically…

I can't follow your comment. You say it doesn't work, then you say there's nothing wrong with it, then you list a bunch of things wrong with it. Also, a few things: - Products and services are make to make money for their creators. They generally try to achieve that by creating something of value others will buy. So this isn't really an argument for or against it. A Prius works and it is a scheme for Toyota to make m…

> I can't follow your comment. You say it doesn't, then you say there's nothing wrong with it, then you list a bunch of things wrong with it.

Where is the part where OP says "there's nothing wrong with it" ?

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

#97

Post by throwawaylinux »

antisthenes wrote: post #96
throwawaylinux wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't follow your comment. You say it doesn't work, then you say there's nothing wrong with it, then you list a bunch of things wrong with it. Also, a few things: - Products and services are make to make money for their creators. They generally try to achieve that by creating something of value others will buy. So this isn't really an argument for or against it. A Prius works and it is a scheme for Toyota to make m…

> I can't follow your comment. You say it doesn't, then you say there's nothing wrong with it, then you list a bunch of things wrong with it. Where is the part where OP says "there's nothing wrong with it" ?

Second sentence.

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

#98

Post by names_are_hard »

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…

Wow...I think you just discovered a hole in Apple's draconian app store policies. They don't let you link to your website from your app if the site has a way to buy a subscription without paying the Apple tax. But what if you sell ad space in your app through an intermediary, and then turn around and bid on ads for users that have your app installed? You might be able to get them to notice you and sign up on the web instead of through the app.

Genius.

(I'm only being half-facetious)

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

#99

Post by lvs »

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…

You seem really defensive about all this. The question at the top of the thread was a little too binary. But the notion that advertising is overvalued would not surprise me at all, nor would it surprise me that many in here depend for their livelihoods on it continuing to be overvalued.

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

#100

Post by names_are_hard »

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…

And never attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by hundreds of individually intelligent people optimizing for their own short term benefit (ie career growth).

We see this in the software industry all the time. Large organizations act inefficiently or against their own interests because large organizations don't actually have consciousness, instead their decisions emerge from the sum of a lot of little decisions and actions, each of which might be individually reasonable.

As an aside, I believe that's how large organizations can come to be evil even if the vast majority of members are not evil.

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