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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?

#131

Post by lordkrandel »

tomc1985 wrote: post #82
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…

I don't think you realize just how insidious advertising is. Repetition builds awareness, which will infiltrate almost any thinking about the product or whatever. Every time you recall an earworm jingle, the ad is serving its purpose. The only way to not be influenced by them is to screen them out.

I feel that the advertisers really want to justify their salary and glorify their existence, by telling you their work is valued in years and that they never fail. It's a delusion. Here I am, after 37 years of advertising of everything, from shoes to games to food, to cars... in every single media... and? What are the results?

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

#132

Post by diffeomorphism »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #79
diffeomorphism wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two questions: - if the buyer was intoxicated, isn't that sale invalid? - how is that in any way ethical?

> if the buyer was intoxicated, isn't that sale invalid? Under what law? Am I not allowed to drunkenly order food at a restaurant? What's the threshold for a purchase that should be invalid?

Lots of laws to pick from depending on the jurisdiction, e.g. see https://www.quora.com/If-you-sign-a-contract-while-drunk-or-...

> what is the threshold...

Far past the threshold is glaringly obvious, far below as well. If it is close, you do what is always done about any threshold question.

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

#133

Post by lordnacho »

leobg wrote: post #127
lordnacho wrote: post #84

I gave drop shipping a try at one point, just to learn something about the internet. It more or less paid for itself, without much profit, using just FB ads. So basically if some amateur can break even with barely any understanding of how it works, someone with proper marketing experience can probably do well enough to make a living. The thing is the purchase rate was something like 1%. So it may well be that most pe…

“At one point”. You’re talking 2010? I don’t think an amateur still has a chance of breaking even in 2022. Am I wrong?

It was early 2020. Bought some stuff, made some adverts, saw how the interface works on FB, saw how Shopify works, watched orders coming in and get fulfilled.

I still don't really know how to do any of those things properly but it was clear that someone out there was clicking on ads and buying stuff from me.

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

#134

Post by iamstupidsimple »

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…

It's called a "house ad" and is generally free for the publisher. They appear when there's no other inventory (like insurance ads). Usually double-click stuff is all negotiated by publishers and has little to do with AdSense or bidding.

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

#135

Post by kcplate »

soared wrote: post #55
kcplate wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Honestly I think after you reach a certain point of brand awareness your marketing becomes just about maintaining name saturation and letting brand loyalty and affinity do it’s thing. Watching it in action is strange to people like me that put a great deal of value into measuring campaign value.

As much as I am critical of the approach, I can’t really says it’s a bad strategy, as these are brands that had worldwide reputations long before I became involved and most of my involvement was pretty narrow to a specific product or product vertical.

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

#136

Post by nottorp »

saberworks wrote: post #9

I 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…

> The ads are definitely targeted, as I only see ads for books related to what I've already purchased and read.

Maybe you do. I'm subscribed to Asimov's and SF&F electronic editions digitally via the Kindle store. Not even once have I noticed an ad for scifi/fantasy books on my Kindle. Most of the time it's fluffy bestsellers.

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

#137

Post by lamontcg »

mkdirp wrote: post #43
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…

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 revie…

Review sites are probably all ads these days. Its better to search reddit or something like that for recommendations, but of course those can get astroturf'd, but for smaller brands that likely isn't an issue.

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

#138

Post by distribot »

newaccount74 wrote: post #126
distribot wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Selling homeopathic medicine is also a huge market, so big that every single pharmacy in Austria has an huge range of homeopathic medicine on display. Just the fact that people buy ad campaigns doesn't mean that they have any effect at all.

That's fair but homepathic medicine is dwarfed by regular medicine in the industrialized world. There's no homepathic Pfizer or Bayer. I think if there was another practice that was way better than targeted advertising, targeted advertising might exist as a distant woo-woo second.

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

#139

Post by notfromhere »

kcplate wrote: post #135
soared wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Honestly I think after you reach a certain point of brand awareness your marketing becomes just about maintaining name saturation and letting brand loyalty and affinity do it’s thing. Watching it in action is strange to people like me that put a great deal of value into measuring campaign value. As much as I am critical of the approach, I can’t really says it’s a bad strategy, as these are brands that had worldwide r…

It's true. At some point you do hit the maximum brand awareness, and after that point, you're just paying to stop your competitors from doing the same.

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

#140

Post by notfromhere »

mcv wrote: post #123
xapata wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coca-Cola's advertising is so good, the sugar water literally tastes better if you know it's Coke, compared with a blind taste test.

So their advertising influences taste, but does it actually influence sales?

The basis for every DTC brand is paid advertising. Advertising definitely works, especially in B2B contexts when you can directly track activity to a sale. But there's definitely marginal returns on it once you saturate your market.
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