The advertising industry has been living a lie

As I understand it, advertising is seen in terms of acquisition cost (and ROI more broadly). If ROI is a positive, the campaign is a success.

However, this binary view is incredibly limited, and thus leaves significant room for rent-seekers who add no real value to the process. These rent-seekers will leach away value until it is at the minimum acceptable value. If the (legitimate) advertising industry can cut out the fat, it stands to significantly improve results for its clients. Until those clients demand improvements, however, these costly changes will not be implemented and the industry will continue on.

I started paying attention to the ads about six months ago, because I'd manage to notice how poorly targeted they were when I did see them. They are terrible.

I think the best targeted ads have been from a company that sells barn doors. Really, they are in fact selling barn doors online. That's a very compelling ad for me. Except, you know, I already have doors for the barns. I am not actually in the market for new barn doors.

I don't actually need a bra, free for thirty days. I don't have breasts. The missus doesn't use my tablet and actually has her own network connection as I tend to saturate mine sharing Linux isos and stuff like that.

I don't need a used car. I have more than adequate automotive sources already. I'd buy a used car, but it would not be a Toyota that has just come off lease. Maybe try selling me a 900S Turbo from 1992?

I don't have any major medical problems, trying to sell me drugs is pretty silly. I don't need insurance, I'm already well insured. I'm not concerned about paying the least amount for insurance, I'm concerned with the best coverage and service. An ad for, "We are dirt cheep but just shoot you if you're involved in an accident insurance" is not very interesting.

They have vast amounts of information on me. Why not try to sell me a new plow? I'm kinda in the market for one. Why not something to do with hunting, fishing, gardening, or food preservation? Not one ad has has any of those things. They know I own a Kubota, why not advertise some new implements?

I don't get it... I'll buy stuff. I'm more than happy to buy stuff. I love buying stuff. I buy stuff I don't need - all the damned time. Yet, literally no ads have compelled me to click and make a purchase. I have clicked, I just haven't found anything worth buying. I've never bought anything from a placed Internet ad, except when I was searching specifically for that product.

Something is broken.

previously, companies couldn't focus on the long tail because there were many limitations. For example. say you want to sell sodas, there are only so many types you can fit on a truck / shelf, etc. Then came the internet, so the idea was you could chase the long tail and sell xyz soda that only .01% of the market would drink.

the problem is, people tend to do things that fit Dirichlet distributions, and a consequence of that is double jeapardy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy_(marketing)

the part in the link thats important is that brands with lower market share aka 'niche' products, people also tend to buy less frequently.

I see this all the time dealing with people. someone will be like 'i love x, its the bset, i dont understand why people dont love x so much, people who love y aren't dedicated as i am'. (y being the mass liked thing). but when you crunch the numbers, almost always people who like y consume y more than the zealot x. even more damning, the majority of the time the x zealot actually consumes y more than x.

> thousands of websites.

The author of this has absolutely no idea how modern advertising works.