Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

digiday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 464 posts

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

#41

Post by Tade0 »

Here's an interesting 2nd order effect:

I switched off most of the stuff I could after GDPR went into force, so at first glance it seemed that I started getting trash.

That was until I saw a banner with a unappealing gray background with a fragment of a poem.

It was an ad. For a poem. This one specifically: https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2009/7/12/age-of-asininity.html?...

No way in hell I would discover such a thing had my ads been targeted and personalised, since those usually are reactive, so they show e.g. stuff you recently bought(meaning: been searching for recently).

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

#42

Post by i_cant_speel »

pytyper2 wrote: post #31
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.

This makes sense to me. If you are targeting me, I have told you I like it, and therefore don't need you to tell me about it.

I often get targeted ads for upcoming shows in my area. Just because you have identified that you like a subject does not necessarily mean you have spent all the money you are going to spend on that subject.

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

#43

Post by bfdm »

wukerplank wrote: post #29
josefresco wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this include "remarketing"? From what I read it's much more effective. For those that don't know, remarketing involves showing ads to only people who have visited your website, or interacted with your brand before. Is this considered targeted?

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.

I find the more effective version is showing you different products that either complement something you bought or are substitutions or variations on something you considered but did not buy. (Either browsed or added to cart but did not complete purchase)

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

#44

Post by buboard »

cribbles wrote: post #33
buboard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the big websites can afford to stop tracking. The problem is that smaller / weird niche websites can't , and gdpr is disproportionally hurting them.

Source for this claim?

https://digiday.com/media/impact-gdpr-5-charts/

https://voxeu.org/article/short-run-effects-gdpr-technology-...

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

#45

Post by SilasX »

darkpuma wrote: post #34
BoorishBears wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the other software developers working on things directly and indirectly funded by that industry should what? Take up knitting?

Say what you want, but sweaters don't spy on people.

Hip, disruptive startup: "Hold our beer."

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

#46

Post by buboard »

detaro wrote: post #37
buboard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the big websites can afford to stop tracking. The problem is that smaller / weird niche websites can't , and gdpr is disproportionally hurting them.

Why do weird niche websites need more tracking? I'd assume their user base is way more specific, and thus can be targeted better without needing tracking. That I visit the NYT tells you way less about my interests than that I'm reading your blog about aquarium filters.

this logic (barely) works for blogs. if your game is an aquarium game, it doesn't mean that your users are only interested in aquarium cleaning products.

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

#47

Post by throwawaymath »

darkpuma wrote: post #34
BoorishBears wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the other software developers working on things directly and indirectly funded by that industry should what? Take up knitting?

Say what you want, but sweaters don't spy on people.

Then in a decade our new sardonic message board reference will be, "Yes, the software engineering industry cratered. But for a beautiful moment in time, we stopped serving ads."

I don't think the parent commenter disagrees with you about spying. I think they're trying to highlight the fundamental tension of the is-ought problem at play here. Your normative claim is that it's good to limit activity which reduces consumer privacy. The positive conclusion is that to achieve this moral imperative, we'd have to either radically repurpose existing software engineers or radically reduce the industry.

Your point about spying isn't wrong. But I think history shows us that taking away (or reducing) peoples' livelihood while telling them, "well at least you're no longer a moral hazard!" isn't productive. It's too extreme. If you want to actually reduce the negative externalities caused by digital advertising, you can't realistically tell software engineers to take up knitting.

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

#48

Post by criddell »

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.

If I shop around for a lamp on 5 different websites and finally buy from a 6th site, how do those first 5 websites learn that I bought a lamp?

The pervasive tracking of which retargeting is the most visible form is mostly what drove me to use an ad blocker. I wonder if the cost effectiveness calculation factors in lost future purchases?

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

#49

Post by nemothekid »

detaro wrote: post #37
buboard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the big websites can afford to stop tracking. The problem is that smaller / weird niche websites can't , and gdpr is disproportionally hurting them.

Why do weird niche websites need more tracking? I'd assume their user base is way more specific, and thus can be targeted better without needing tracking. That I visit the NYT tells you way less about my interests than that I'm reading your blog about aquarium filters.

I can only give you speculation on what I’ve seen in online video.

If you are a smaller publisher, unless you get particularly active in courting advertisers (i.e. spend time going into sales), the niche advertisers will never even look at your content. The 20-something digital ad manager has no motivation to risk his job doing speculative ad spend. As a result your ads are less relevant and your inventory’s CPM drops as a result.

If you are a large property, then tracking affects you less (in fact tracking might be worse for you). Large publishers already have sales and marketing teams and ad managers will just choose you because you are “safe”. If brands are moving to a world where tracking data is less and less reliable, then by default they will move to spending more money on a smaller amount of “safe” inventory

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

#50

Post by lotu »

raverbashing wrote: post #19
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.

You mean that following the users with the same repetitive ads across the net (for things that he might have even bought already) is not so effective? Yeah, tracking probably throws the ads into a local minima. But ad algos don't care about conversion, they care about charging the ad buyer more.

From professional and personal experince, remarketing ads, what you are describing, are much more effective ($ spent / products sold) for the advertiser than traditional ads.

So why do ads follow you even after you bought the product? Well the ads are still less than 1% effective (products sold / by ads shown), so for the average company (not Amazon) it is just not worth the engineering effort for a So what is the deal with the NYTimes? They a huge popular publisher (especially amount rich people) already command high ad prices through traditional adverstising. The value of a remarking ad (to the advertiser) is largely independent of the site that it is shown on. So The New York Times would naturally have fewer of these ads because the adverstiser gets more ads/$ on other sites. A diffrent site like a local paper might have a diffrent story. However remarketing ads have never been a large percentage of ads shown so from a revenue stand point publishers care a lot less about them.

Post reply on HN