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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

#231

Post by polskibus »

MarkMc wrote: post #52
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.

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…

Maybe it's the willingness to click a random ad from a curated set that I haven't seen before instead of clicking on things that have been forecasted as interesting to me, but I already know about them?

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

#232

Post by soared »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #95
skilled wrote: post #35

I can't be the only one who thinks behavioral targeting is a bit creepy? This has happened to me at least 3-4 times in the last 2 years: I go to a supermarket or a store that I have never been to, I do shopping and come back home. After a few hours, I pick up my phone to check Email/Facebook, only to find myself staring at an advert for a product that's sitting in my fridge. I mean, come on... The first time this hap…

I bought a Casper mattress around a year ago and the websites I visit are still full of ads for mattresses. How many mattresses do they think I need, anyway!?

If you click the blue triangle in the corner of an ad you can usually block an advertiser or choose to stop seeing it.

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

#233

Post by rusk »

wlesieutre wrote: post #138
rusk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a matter of custom, fixed-width is for code [0] It is more typical to italicize a blockquote, perhaps with leading `>` to mark it out: > like this - and this is a list-item - and so is this it's just a matter of courtesy to those using smaller screens and assistive technologies Thanks! [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

I agree in principle, but - I don't - think that - individual paragraphs - for a list - is a very good - use of space - on small screens - or on large ones Code blocks are crappy for small screens, but so are lists written as a series of paragraphs. Unfortunately, HN seems opposed to supporting non-paragraph linebreaks, lists, blockquotes, or any other sort of formatting. That's fine, it's up to dang and the other ad…

sorry it wasn't an intentional omission. I was being brief.

   The problem is that anything beyond a certain length gets clipped and has to be scrolled from side-to-side which is a very hard way to read.
However I can quite

happilly

scroll down all day and it

is more harmonious with how

my brain likes to read!

As a HN reader I understand and accept the limitations of the formatting.

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

#234

Post by rusk »

hawski wrote: post #222
fastball wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe that just goes to show just how much money they're making that they don't really need to feel bothered!

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

#235

Post by AnthonyMouse »

schintan wrote: post #209
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 diet. Are such details of no significance determining what ads to show these people? It's possible that some combination of…

Even though Steve has already decided to buy a BMW 3 series, he most probably hasn't decided which dealership to buy it from. So a dealership advertising has a good chance of a look in.Same case for Mary, she knows she wants to buy a fitbit , but where to buy from can still be influenced by an ad.

Then you're sniping existing customers from other retailers, which is zero-sum when everybody does it, and it's possible for your competitors to tell when you're doing it and retaliate by doing the same. At which point you're both paying for advertising that only cancels out the competitor's advertising. A smart retailer is not going to be the first one to take a turn down that road. It's essentially iterated prisoner's dilemma.

And it may even be profitable to be the first to turn away from it when everybody else is on it, and instead use more of your ad spend for non-zero-sum customer generation. Then you get all the new customers to yourself while everyone else burns their margins fighting over the existing ones.

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

#236

Post by soared »

cm2012 wrote: post #146

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.

Agreed. Absolutely stunning how so many comments make insane claims with no knowledge about what they're talking about.

> I honestly would not be surprised if the difference in effectiveness of targeted vs untargeted advertisement turns out to be none

> What if I told you the NYT has been doing "untargeted" advertising for 150 years? Besides if you advertise in the NYT you ARE technically targeting people

> advertising is the art of fooling oneselves first about the source of success and then fooling others

> Why would any premium website even agree to ads that track users?

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

#237

Post by JAlexoid »

kristianc wrote: post #38
wukerplank wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder if this really works? Amazon uses it a lot and all I get ads for are products that I already bought. Which is pointless.

It is possible for advertisers to configure it so that this does not happen (in theory), but a lot simply do not bother. I've seen some compelling case studies that it does work, and even at low conversion % for big-ticket items (like hotels etc) it's insanely cost effective.

Certain hotels and services are already targeting a captive audience.

If you're looking for hotels in London, you're already intent on finding a hotel.

A single 3 night booking in New York City will easily produce $100 of revenue for an online travel agency. So... Throwing $10 for a click is hardly a bad investment.

Other products and services are not like that.

Look for food delivery on Google and check how many ads are unnecessary for you

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

#238

Post by misterprime »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #235
schintan wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though Steve has already decided to buy a BMW 3 series, he most probably hasn't decided which dealership to buy it from. So a dealership advertising has a good chance of a look in.Same case for Mary, she knows she wants to buy a fitbit , but where to buy from can still be influenced by an ad.

Then you're sniping existing customers from other retailers, which is zero-sum when everybody does it, and it's possible for your competitors to tell when you're doing it and retaliate by doing the same. At which point you're both paying for advertising that only cancels out the competitor's advertising. A smart retailer is not going to be the first one to take a turn down that road. It's essentially iterated prisone…

That may be the genius of targeted ads. Once one vendor starts doing it, the other vendors have no choice but to bid on the same target.

Winner: ad platform.

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

#239

Post by JAlexoid »

manigandham wrote: post #82
thatguyagain wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What stands in the way of a small niche website for, say, dog owners to sell ad space for dog related products without having some kind of data hoarding ad tech behind it?

Because advertisers don't want to deal with a bunch of smaller sites. That's why ad networks and exchanges exist, so you can buy a single impression for the right user wherever they are across the web. Take away the fine-grained targeting and you end up with big blind campaigns running on a few large sites with the biggest reach. This is the way TV and radio work, wasteful and expensive but great for the channels tha…

Fine grained targeting is a myth.

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

#240

Post by bunderbunder »

soared wrote: post #230
tivert wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I thought part of the problem with the ad exchanges was that they're very hard to police, so what they officially don't allow has limited bearing on what actually happens.
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