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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?

#111

Post by XorNot »

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…

As far as I know, the convention about this is that when you buy a thing, the most likely next purchase statistically is in fact the same thing because you are unhappy with the one you bought.

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

#112

Post by Joeri »

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…

You are going to have to provide sources for these claims. Freakonomics podcast did an episode on the topic of online advertising and argued largely the opposite of what you’re saying, that there is massive overspending on online advertising, and increases in sales often get misattributed to ad campaigns when they have other causes.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...

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

#113

Post by Tomte »

watwut wrote: post #108
Tomte wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alrea…

None of this sounds super frequent?

Doesn't matter in the slightest. You've identified yourself as someone who is definitely interested in that product. And not "just looking", but actually paying money. That's super valuable to businesses.

I still maintain that people who have bought a TV yesterday are more likely to buy a TV today than people who haven't bought a TV yesterday. Very few people buy a TV today. Or in the coming days.

It seems like a straightforward application of the base rate fallacy. Sure, most people who bought the TV yesterday keep their TV and don't need a second one.

But unless you have specific information about other people's interest in buying one, they may still be your best shot at selling another one.

Also, both you and sibling commenter argue as if there were a scarcity of ads. Amazon showing me a TV ad doesn't preclude Amazon from showing me a kitchen utensil ad on the next page.

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

#114

Post by dathinab »

There had been more then one or two stories about ad "not getting delivered to the target audience" and companies not noticing it through changes in sold products. (Not delivered in the broad sense, from accidentally not bought over misconfigured audience to problems with ad networks.)

So I'm but sure about the (micro) targeting aspects.

What I'm sure about is that ads work, especially if you do them well.

And it's hard to keep the quality separate from the delivery method, as you can't do clean a/b testing or similar (as things like "seen before" or even other ads can have noticable effects as far as I can tell).

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

#115

Post by distribot »

Joeri wrote: post #112
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…

You are going to have to provide sources for these claims. Freakonomics podcast did an episode on the topic of online advertising and argued largely the opposite of what you’re saying, that there is massive overspending on online advertising, and increases in sales often get misattributed to ad campaigns when they have other causes. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-w...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_advertising#:~:text=I...

Markets are imperfect and irrational, but you really don't think that there is a trillion dollar misunderstanding about the efficacy of the practice? Idk jack about advertising but it seems unlikely to me.

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

#116

Post by watwut »

Tomte wrote: post #113
watwut wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this sounds super frequent?

Doesn't matter in the slightest. You've identified yourself as someone who is definitely interested in that product. And not "just looking", but actually paying money. That's super valuable to businesses. I still maintain that people who have bought a TV yesterday are more likely to buy a TV today than people who haven't bought a TV yesterday. Very few people buy a TV today. Or in the coming days. It seems like a str…

But what you described does not match my behavior at all. Not the one of my friends. It sounds like logical theory, sure.

And it is completely at odds with how I buy things. Or how people I know buy things.

> I still maintain that people who have bought a TV yesterday are more likely to buy a TV today than people who haven't bought a TV yesterday.

I never ever seen anyone buy second TV shortly after buying first one. Never.

> Amazon showing me a TV ad doesn't preclude Amazon from showing me a kitchen utensil ad on the next page.

I get monothematic ads. There is always that one thing that follows me everywhere. I don't get mix of ads. It is as if their system thought I buy only shoes. Or only TV.

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

#117

Post by smileybarry »

I turned off ad targeting wherever possible, but Meta is one of the few that don't allow you to and I still see targeted ads on Instagram.

I've been thinking of getting a new backpack, and I got backpack ads. However, while I get "ads" -- plural -- they're all from the same single vendor selling a "last bag you'll ever need" that doesn't look all that good. It's frustrating more than helping, the exact reason why I turned off ad targeting in the first place.

Years ago I turned targeting back on in Google, and it just meant I got spammed with Pebble ads (>50% of the banners everywhere were Pebble) because I kept checking their website for a sale (at the time they did occasional 2-3 day sales without advertising them, weird given the banner budget). I just turned it off again after that experience.

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

#119

Post by smileybarry »

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…

It depends where and when, I find that Instagram/Meta ads sometimes work for me, and Amazon related items occasionally do too. But more often than not (I wrote in another comment) I get ads in a category I am interested in, but from one of the many brands that sell a marked-up "recycled polyester fabric! 50% off!" type of thing that's clearly worse than "real" brands, like a backpack worse than the one I'm trying to replace.

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

#120

Post by wruza »

I run adblockers for the same reason. I’m not against ads or supporting sites via ads, and I actually want something new to try. But all ads I see fall into two categories: already bought it for a couple of weeks. Or completely irrelevant, which I never click.

They have everything on me: my age, sex, social state and circles, location, life habits, profession, work hours, sleep hours, movie and porn preferences, which non-entertainment topics I’m interested in, which medical issues I have, and probably 50 more properties I never thought about.

But I never clicked on any nonsense they tried to advertise to me. I see nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing relevant to my life in ads. None of my new interests ever came from these flashy boxes.

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