The whole ads in AI services just seem to be silly. Considering how many of these AI companies are not making money, I understand the "need" to do this, however it will for sure feel bad for the consumer.
We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
231–240 of 603 posts
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#232> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?
Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Their purpose isn’t to be helpful. They're there to sell you something, and nothing more. Any semblance of helpfulness is misinterpretation and merely coincidental.
FD - I pay Insta to advertise a product for parents.
The results of above mentioned advertising have been great. I get inbound enquiries, parents get their curiosity about the usefulness of what I offer whetted. I don’t understand how the ad was unhelpful to the parent and me.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#233I would have expected them to wait with ads until OpenAI starts first and users switch to Gemini. Google is probably the player that could afford to wait the longest with this and increase their market share that way.
100%. This is the only part that I find surprising/confusing. Surely whoever blinks first incurs a massive reputational hit with the public (who don't think about this deeply enough to see that it was always inevitable), so why do that if you don't have to? Perhaps the bright side from Google's POV is that it means that they can be the first to start wooing advertisers to their platform. First-mover advantage there m…
OpenAI starts from excellent UX and needs to prove that they can monetize all those empty pixels. They will no doubt succeed.
Google starts from horrid UX where every advertiseable pixel has been squeezed dry. Only way to go is down.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not think that I have ever seen on the Internet a helpful ad. When I want to buy something, I search what I want or I go directly to online shops that I have used before or to price comparison sites. Nonetheless, mostly before the appearance of the Internet, when I was reading various technical journals, especially during the seventies and the eighties of the past century, e.g. magazines or journals of electroni…
If you're researching which fridge to buy on Gemini, then an ad might be helpful. So long as they've got the data to answer your questions such as how wide it is.
But only if that result contains all the facts, and doesn’t show only the fridge that they have an ad for while there also other fridges that fit.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Their purpose isn’t to be helpful. They're there to sell you something, and nothing more. Any semblance of helpfulness is misinterpretation and merely coincidental.
> Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Depends. Ads a low-effort large-reach pathways for lead generation, mostly useful for B2C penetration. I also did sales when I ran my own company, and I can absolutely guarantee that ads can be helpful. When talking to leads you're talking to someone who a) never saw what you offered but is listening to you anyway, or b) saw what you offered and decided to contac…
You argue that ads can be helpful... by saying all the ways ads are helpful to the business. That's not what Google means. It's a way to make ads not sound like an obnoxious shitshow by pretending they are helpful for the consumer. The only way they are remotely helpful is to let someone know about a product they didn't know about. But that's not what ads are really for and we all know it. They're for manipulating people into buying a product, but whether they need it is purely coincidental. The admongers can stop pretending otherwise.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me let you in on a little industry "secret" You can't trust those results no matter what The pages that they pull in to source that data all contain affiliate links and companies contact websites to get their tools to the tops of those lists by paying money often monthly. I know this because I do this... It's basically standard SEO but it also manipulates AI like ChatGPT very very easily
> It's basically standard SEO but it also manipulates AI like ChatGPT very very easily There are key differences. 1) Google doesn't get paid for the SEO, so even is crime is involved, Google isn't directly responsible. 2) AI ads are unmarked, which is illegal pretty much everywhere. And because of the way LLMs work, it is impossible to tell where a given output came from, neither which part of the prompt/context nor…
I'm just talking about the methods that business owners can use for getting good SEO or AI recommendations are basically the same thing, not sure what point you are trying to make?
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#237> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?
Since when have we considered ads something helpful? Their purpose isn’t to be helpful. They're there to sell you something, and nothing more. Any semblance of helpfulness is misinterpretation and merely coincidental.
"More helpful" to the person selling the ad, perhaps :)
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#238I never got into DuckDuckGo, but here we go. Defaulted from yesterday when Google made AI Search a default for Google Search. Well, I have been using Altavista and others so I can get used to another one.
I honestly love duckduckgo after moving a few months back. in my experience, it is now way more accurate at search than google in recent times. way less sponsored content and the AI is very grounded if you want quick answers. but only if you click the generate ai content button. otherwise the default is to show you results.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#239> We’re introducing more helpful ads in AI Mode I always chuckle when ad companies say that. I have never seen a helpful ad in google search, but well I have been using adblockers forever so I would not know.I am honestly curious though, for those who don't use adblockers - what percentage of ads that you see are actually helpful?
I have to wonder if helpful ads most likely refers to the type of add for the exact search result…
So, for example if you search for Coca-Cola the first ad will be something Coke has paid Google for. That helps Google earn $ and helps Coke not loose to a site with better SEO and confusion. Does it help you… maybe.
Re: We're testing new ad formats in Search and expanding our Direct Offers pilot
#240The only reason Google is pushing this AI crap is so that they can shove ads right into people's throats without them being able to use ad blockers (it's easy to block a web script but virtually impossible to block the text itself), effectively doubling their profits overnight.
Semi-seriously: I imagine we'll live to see the day when we run an adblocker that runs a small model to semantically filter out ads in Google search results
Sounds like a good fit for a small, on-device model. Can Chrome extensions use the new Prompt API, which has caused a stir because Google pushed it through against opposition of virtually everyone else? (https://developer.chrome.com/docs/ai/prompt-api)
Would be hilarious.