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ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

successfulsoftware.net

31–40 of 85 posts

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#31
post #28
post #26

Yes, ChatGPT ads are a heaping pile of garbage. I feel sorry for anyone that’s wasted perfectly good marketing spend on such nonsense. Outside a captive platform like Amazon, most ads are garbage and a total waste of money. If I’m on Amazon trying to buy X and my search for X “promotes” an option to the top of the list yeah that probably influences me buying that. But the broader online ad ecosystem is a total waste…

Amazon is garbage too. It keeps showing the same product that I already bought .

True :-).

Probably more that from an ROI perspective that’s probably the “least worst” vs the best.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#32
Speaking as a consumer, I’ve always found ad targeting to be way off for Google, YouTube or even facebook. The few times I got ads I ChatGPT it was also off. It’s kinda ironic that with all that AI, they choose not to use any of that intelligence to target ads better. It makes you wonder what all those engineers are working on if not the main revenue driver.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#33

> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic. However 0.46% is a shockingly low conversion rate. I'm not an ad guru by any means, but isn't it expected that you will get junk clicks with a bid like that? Seems like a you-get-what-you-pay-for scenario.

Well I think your experiment more shows that while Open AI is trying to position this as a viable marketing platform, in reality folks with marketing dollars do spend aren’t buying what they’re selling so you’re able to win at pricing far below where they really want/need the market to be.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#34
post #20

Everything with ads is garbage. All the time. It poses no benefit to humanity even a little bit.

Local advertisements can be nice. The advertisement section in the local newspaper was a thing people used to actually seek out, once upon a time. The real problem is the scaling of advertisement frameworks globally and algorithmically serving individuals or certain groups. It is strictly parasitic at that level.

If "can be nice" is the bar of quality we hold ads to, then all advertisement passes the bar. A lot of newspaper ads were for luxury tchotchkes, cigarettes, booze or gambling. Back then, advertisements had some pretty substantial downsides, normalizing entire swathes of behavior that is today considered unhealthy and exploitative.

At most, I would call advertisement a Tragedy of the Commons. But the way publicity works, it feels like the tragedy is unavoidable; all smart advertisers will eventually transgress against normalcy.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#35

> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic. However 0.46% is a shockingly low conversion rate. I'm not an ad guru by any means, but isn't it expected that you will get junk clicks with a bid like that? Seems like a you-get-what-you-pay-for scenario.

>isn't it expected that you will get junk clicks with a bid like that?

No. Bidding low means less or no clicks, but should not affect traffic quality.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#36

Everything with ads is garbage. All the time. It poses no benefit to humanity even a little bit.

Except for socialising the entire internet age, giving poor people in 3rd world slums the same access to the same platforms as the richest 0.001%. No one likes to acknowledge this, but there is an alternate timeline where only the rich kid in school has a Google account, reddit account, meta account, and almost all content is still produced by massive media conglomerates. Ads suck and everyone hates them, but don't l…

Before Google, before Reddit, before Facebook, people all over the world, rich and poor, run their own sites and their own forums, allowing them to chat with people throughout the world.

Here in Serbia, even in the worst of times (sanctions, NATO bombing in 1999), people with internet access could participate in local and global fora, newsgroups etc. It was expensive to get a computer and internet access, but people were willing to pay to host a small community. Late in 90s and early in 2000s, there was a huge number of cheap "virtual hosting" providers, and even cheaper LAMP stack providers, where people would run their own phpBB or similar forum software. IRC I probably need not mention.

This "great equalising" has been nothing but a negative in the long run.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#37
post #26

Yes, ChatGPT ads are a heaping pile of garbage. I feel sorry for anyone that’s wasted perfectly good marketing spend on such nonsense. Outside a captive platform like Amazon, most ads are garbage and a total waste of money. If I’m on Amazon trying to buy X and my search for X “promotes” an option to the top of the list yeah that probably influences me buying that. But the broader online ad ecosystem is a total waste…

presumably if this was true advertising spend would dry up in these useless cases. The fact that it hasnt and people intensely dislike spending money without getting anything for it, I suspect it must work on someone.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#38
post #15
post #2

Ads are part of the enshitification of ChatGPT. In the short-term it might offer them some kind of lifeline and I'm sure in their next investor call they'll highlight their revenue from Ads. But if their competitors (including open-weight models) can offer similar quality and ease of use, Ads is just another reason _not_ to use them.

Ads are responsible for the enshitification of everything. Literally everything. - Why is online news just partisan rage-baiting? Ads - Why is real journalism dying? Ads - Why are your web search results less helpful? Ads - Why are recipes 2,000 words long? Ads - Why is social media engineered for scroll-maxxing? - Why is your car/TV/refrigerator spamming you? - Why are pharmaceuticals so expensive? - Why is your pop…

> Why is real journalism dying? Ads

This is not really true. Ads, especially the classifieds, were often the only way that newspapers and news organizations stayed afloat aside from public funding. What happened was the major ad-tech companies captured the revenue and the subscriber data that came from ads and viewers that would normally go to those organizations. "Real journalism" often didn't make much if not any money. "Real journalism" at least for most of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st has always existed alongside advertising. Magazines literally survived on advertising, their entire product to readers was long form content, while, to brands, a higher quality product and more targeted subscriber base. It's pure romanticism to say that ads themselves were the problem. Ad-tech, it's monopoly control in the hands of 2-3 behemoths, is the real issue.

Re: ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

#39

Speaking as a consumer, I’ve always found ad targeting to be way off for Google, YouTube or even facebook. The few times I got ads I ChatGPT it was also off. It’s kinda ironic that with all that AI, they choose not to use any of that intelligence to target ads better. It makes you wonder what all those engineers are working on if not the main revenue driver.

I understand why it's hard, but it's very funny to get ads for a product I've bought for weeks/months after completing the purchase.

I looked for rain boots, and I bought a pair of rain boots. Getting ads for rain boots now isn't going to drive any purchasing, right? Meta or Alphabet get paid still, so the advertisers are getting hosed.

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