It's amazing how so many people who no knowledge of online advertising post so confidently in these threads. Since I have a lot of experience with targeted ads, it makes me trust the comments on topics I'm not an expert on less.
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After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
151–160 of 464 posts
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be absolutely astounded if targeted ads did not provide significant long-term advantage to a big player like Google. How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a d…
My experience of targeted advertising is Amazon trying to sell me things I’ve already bought ...
Me too - but I do wonder sometimes if there's a long game involved, where it's more likely to make you recommend it, or give it as a gift. I can't quite see how that would work in practice, but it just seems so utterly stupid otherwise.
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience of targeted advertising is Amazon trying to sell me things I’ve already bought ...
This is a point I bring up when casually talking with non-tech minded friends when they start talking about machine learning taking over everything... I bought a Dyson last summer. Amazon is still suggesting that I buy more vacuum cleaners.
And selling Hawaii vacation packages to people after they have been there. And I live on the east coast.
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Booking pushing advertisements for the exact same hotel I've just checked on their service. I can't understand how that would seem like a good idea to anyone.
I've thought the same (and heard the same booking "blunder"), until I visited a city I had visited before, and went for the exact same hotel...
Surely that would make sense the next time you visit the city, not for the same visit.
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if your game is an aquarium game, it doesn't mean that your users are only interested in aquarium cleaning products. Correct. On the other hand, the topic of the game is just one of the contexts. A trivial example: At least we can infer that the player likes to play games, so advertising for mobile games, discount gaming consoles etc might be a better match.
yeah but the category "plays games" is too broad, rivaled by "reads blogs". And after the users have seen enough of gaming ads (and not responded) they are offeered the bottom of the barrel: russian brides (true story). If we are going to go down the road of doing increasingly detailed ad customization as publishers, we will have come full circle to reinventing targeted ads by another name.
Targeted ads have always been around. Everyone targets their ads. Decide whether to put your ad in the Times or the Sun.
Its the unsolicited tracking/stalking of individuals across communication networks GDPR forbids.
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be absolutely astounded if targeted ads did not provide significant long-term advantage to a big player like Google. How can it be that having intimate knowledge of someone would not allow you to sell them more stuff? John has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up. Mary is single and goes to the gym every day. Steve just got a promotion and likes the BMW 3 series. Michael is overweight but has just gone on a d…
Does Steve need an ad to remind him that he likes the BMW 3 series? No doubt one of the first steps he took after his promotion was look up the prices, or finance offers on BMW 3 series, perhaps create a spec and then talk to his partner about it if he has o e. The thing is if there is something I want to buy, or own at some point in my life, I don't tend to forget about it or need some reminder from a targeted ad. I…
I don't think the purpose is to remind him in the BMW case but to get him to purchase it at dealer X instead of dealer Y.
They would be the ones making the ad, targeting someone X miles from them, who is interested in BMW's.
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#157What I found most interesting about the 'block Europe' movement among news sites: If the news sites favor their own revenue over the peoples right for privacy, what are my expectations towards the information they serve?
I mean, if most news sites are getting their biggest revenue via online targeting, who am I expecting to report abusive behavior among ad networks?
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#158It's amazing how so many people who no knowledge of online advertising post so confidently in these threads. Since I have a lot of experience with targeted ads, it makes me trust the comments on topics I'm not an expert on less.
> people who no knowledge ... post so confidently
The Dunning–Kruger effect at work.
> Since I have a lot of experience with targeted ads, it makes me trust the comments on topics I'm not an expert on less.
That's like when you see a news report about something you're a domain expert on. You notice the mistakes and are left to wonder how often that happens with all the areas you're not an expert on...
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
You be surprised how much less sophisticated Googles and Facebooks ad targeting is! We are far away from a machine classifying you as being single and going to the gym every day or liking BMW and having gotten a promotion. Not that I don’t think we couldn’t get there...but today these system are far away from it! Just go to your Facebook ad settings to understand how primitive the information is they have about you.…
> You be surprised how much less sophisticated Googles and Facebooks ad targeting is! If Google's ability to discern my interests for ads is as bad as is their ability to discern my interests for news, then I would not be surprised. I have never been aware of listening to any music by the band "Foo Fighters". I've almost certainly heard their songs in passing, but never in a context that gave me the name of the band.…
Oddly enough, I recently have been seeing an onslaught of Foo Fighters stories on Google news. I am in fact a music fan and musician who knows their songs but I have no special interest in them. I wonder if something about them triggers some runway like function in Google’s algorithm.
Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue
#160Wild speculation: What if cutting off the ad exchanges was a dose of quinine for the New York Times?
NYT is a premium venue for people who want to advertise, because its regular readers (especially the ones who don't live in New York) tend to have above-average disposable income. Because of that, the NYT should be able to charge a premium for advertising with them.
But if they opt into the ad exchanges, then they've given ad exchanges a signal they can use to more easily track who is a regular NYT reader. Advertisers could use that to target NYT readers without ever actually advertising on the NYT's website - they can follow them somewhere cheaper, and advertise there instead.