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After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

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Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#221

Post by ABCLAW »

rchaud wrote: post #202
reaperducer wrote: post #180

Earlier 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. This happened to me just last week. Unfortunately, it's the least of Booking's user-hostile traits. Like sending me e-mails pestering me to review a hotel I checked into less than an hour before. Or flashing "Hurry! Only 1 room left!" when I know for a fact…

All those little tricks you described are part of a strategy usually called Conversion Rate Optimization. They do this because it works. What you described was likely A/B tested. Some visitors to the site saw the nagging message, while others didn't.

Turns out you can grease your numbers by manipulating user sentiment.

Who cares if you need to lie a little bit, right?

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#222

Post by hawski »

fastball wrote: post #185
badwolf wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tbf Amazon has the least experience with ML of the FAANGs.

It seems that it would pay out a lot for them to do a few simple heuristics by hand. For example: if just bought something do not show a thing from the same category. At most show a thing from accessories category, which I think they do.

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#223

Post by JAlexoid »

rock_hard wrote: post #61
MarkMc wrote: post #52

Earlier 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…

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.…

Worked there... Done that...

They are very efficient in telling people that are intending to buy your product that they are going to buy your product. Or even buy your advertised product on the website that you're advertising.

They are not efficient in acquiring new customers, as most(90%+++) of the ad impressions go to the people that are already aware about your product.

The only truly efficient ad targeting is restricted by geography, culture, age and timezone.

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#224

Post by JAlexoid »

reaperducer wrote: post #200
tzs wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

I find that after a few weeks of training, Apple News does a much better job of picking stories I'm interested in than Google News. With two exceptions: There doesn't appear to be a way to filter out sports I'm not interested in, or even all sports. Apple News has a hard time telling the difference between Paris, France and Paris Hilton.

To be fair... Paris Hilton can be a Hilton hotel in Paris. So... Even an proficient English speaker can be mislead

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#225

Post by JAlexoid »

RandallBrown wrote: post #141
Sharlin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do people generally think that targeted ads are especially accurate? If anything, I’d think people are bothered by all that privacy invasion and still getting completely irrelevant ads!

My Facebook/Instagram are stunningly on point. I've even bought a few things from them.

Facebook is full of scam ads and spam. They are literally the worst ad marketplace...e

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#226

Post by cyborgx7 »

throwawaymath wrote: post #193
cyborgx7 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we built a society in which people don't have to choose between loosing their livelyhood and being a moral hazard. In the meantime, I'm not going to cry about the deaths of immoral industries.

Okay. Again, you're highlighting an is-ought problem. I'm not saying the problem doesn't exist. I'm saying we can't just "build a society in which people don't have to choose between losing their livelihood and being a moral hazard." It is at the very least extremely nontrivial and not at all straightforward, even if everyone agrees it's not ideal. I'm not asking you to "cry about the deals of immoral industries" - r…

I am talking about the tracking here, not the advertising. Reasonable people can not disagree on weather or not tracking everyone individually is harmful or not.

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#227

Post by soared »

plausibilities wrote: post #204
soared wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not clear how that would work. How does NYT enabling ad exchanges enable advertisers to target NYT readers or the NYT website?

JS injection into display ads, which happens a lot more often than you would think when it comes to ad display network content.

Yeah, no it doesn't. I ran supply side programmatic for years and run buy side now. That is not true.

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#228

Post by tivert »

soared wrote: post #192
bunderbunder wrote: post #160

Wild 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…

I'm not clear how that would work. How does NYT enabling ad exchanges enable advertisers to target NYT readers or the NYT website?

> How does NYT enabling ad exchanges enable advertisers to target NYT readers or the NYT website?

tl;dr: My understanding is that an advertiser can use ads on the NYT to profile its audience, then use that profile to target the same audience on cheaper sites.

I can't find the link now, but I've read that this practice is killing the economics that drive the production of quality content. Quality content is expensive but it attracts a higher-value audience, and sites make it with the expectation they can pay for it by charging more for ads shown to that audience. However, that audience also consumes low-quality content, and smart advertisers realized they can get more bang for their buck by running "research ads" to profile the high-quality site's audience, but then target that same audience on low-quality sites.

So ad targeting discourages the production of quality content, and encourages clickbait and memes in its place.

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#229

Post by sonnyblarney »

bitofhope wrote: post #6

I honestly would not be surprised if the difference in effectiveness of targeted vs untargeted advertisement turns out to be none, negligible or even unfavorable to targeted. Sure, NYT is not enough data to be significant, especially when compensating for my confirmation bias, but I would really like to see more sites stop tracking, at least from an ethical standpoint.

Targeting ads matter, this is not really a debate.

It's a big paradox that I personally loathe Facebook but would be dead in the water without them as an ad platform: he are the only place that gives us material ability to target people. We don't go that specific or that deep, but it's far more than most others provide.

This is again an issue of the EU killing business with 'well intentioned' but possibly maligned legislation. The NYT as mentioned in the article is a major brand, and they are effectively selling that. Buyers know roughly what they are getting, and transactions back and forth are not small.

Small companies do not have even the budget to access NYT, even then it would be a bad idea in most circumstances.

Smaller companies depend generally on very actionable ads, whereas only at a certain scale does the marginal value of ads matter for brand campaigns etc..

So kudos to the NYT, but this is not good for many as we now have one (major) less place to advertise.

Re: After GDPR, The New York Times cut off ad exchanges and kept growing ad revenue

#230

Post by soared »

tivert wrote: post #228
soared wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not clear how that would work. How does NYT enabling ad exchanges enable advertisers to target NYT readers or the NYT website?

> How does NYT enabling ad exchanges enable advertisers to target NYT readers or the NYT website? tl;dr: My understanding is that an advertiser can use ads on the NYT to profile its audience, then use that profile to target the same audience on cheaper sites. I can't find the link now, but I've read that this practice is killing the economics that drive the production of quality content. Quality content is expensive…

This used to be possible but every reputable publisher and exchange doesn't allow it anymore, mostly for this reason.
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