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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

#411

Post by michaelmrose »

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…

Advertising seems to be pretty bad at suggesting things that would be targeted at me.

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

#412

Post by itcheeze »

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 think there is evidence that in some cases targeted advertising works fairly well. In the book, "The Power of Habit," for instance, it goes into the Target story about their marketing to expecting mothers. This for instance is an opportunity for marketers and businesses to acquire new customers at a point in their life when they're likely to shop somewhere else and become regular customers.

They were able to do this by analyzing purchasing patterns and according to the book were fairly successful.

I'd imagine that online tracking when combined with other sources of data provide a lot of insight into what customers are looking for and in some cases can provide a big payoff.

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

#413

Post by matthewmacleod »

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…

Twitter is even worse - the adverts when travelling are almost entirely in the local language.

I have used Twitter for a decade. They know where I live, and that I’ve never once indicated that I know Spanish or Japanese or whatever, yet somewhow their targeting setup seems to be “you are in Japan therefore here are Japanese adverts” which is fucking baffling for a company with that amount of engineering resource.

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

#414

Post by btilly »

redwall_hp wrote: post #340
FakeComments wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a bigger effect: context. I don’t want to buy beef jerky when I’m reading about a military strike in the Middle East, no matter how much my profile indicates I like beef jerky — but I might be open to a book on politics. Because reading about content is self-selected disclosure of interest, the NYT already has all the information they need to target me — they know I read politics, and when I’m in that context…

In other words: targeted advertising is about making ads cheeper for advertisers, whereas the traditional assumption is that the real estate is valuable and desirable. e.g. companies want their ads in the New York Times or the Superbowl. Targeted advertising is a way of spreading ad dollars out more, which ultimately is detrimental to large publishers as well as being unethical on the data harvesting side. (I choose…

In theory it can go either way. If you can target ads better to get more return per money spent, then it is worthwhile to spend more on advertising. In the end more on advertising is going to result in more money to publishers.

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

#415

Post by AnthonyMouse »

com2kid wrote: post #292
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Except that they do have a choice. Suppose there are five competitors. Everybody knows Steve is going to buy a BMW 3 Series. The margin is $5000. Assuming everyone else is going to do what you're going to do, how much does it make sense to bid to advertise to Steve? If you bid $10…

You are assuming the ads don't have any impact on where Steve goes to buy. In reality what happens is marketing runs an ad for $3000 offering a $1000 incentive, Steve makes the purchase, and making gets to (possibly correctly) claim they netted $1000 in sales. Those marketing people want to keep their jobs, so they are going to work hard to justify their existence!

> You are assuming the ads don't have any impact on where Steve goes to buy.

No, I am assuming that advertising works the same for everyone. If there are five dealers and fifty customers and with no advertising each dealer gets ten customers, then with each dealer spending $50,000 on targeted advertising, each dealer still gets ten customers. When each dealer spends the same amount they each get the same benefit, so they still split the existing customers five ways.

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

#416

Post by vuyani »

therealx wrote: post #390
rusk wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience of targeted advertising is Amazon trying to sell me things I’ve already bought ...

I've heard this is done sometimes to make you feel good about your purchase and the decision you made by showing you inferior options.

can you elaborate more on this or perhaps drop a link?

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

#417

Post by baddox »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #83
baddox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds vastly oversimplified. So you’ve discovered that I’m into hiking/camping gear. That doesn’t mean I will never buy another piece of outdoor gear or that I have heard of every brand and product in that category.

if you really are into hiking/camping gear, you probably know where to find it and at what kind of price, or perhaps you know you will actively search and compare when buying, so the ad is of little relevance.

I think advertisers would be overjoyed to hear your low estimate of your susceptibility to ads.

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

#418

Post by a11595 »

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…

[flagged]

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

#419

Post by manigandham »

alkonaut wrote: post #362
manigandham wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest players are Facebook and Google who are further entrenched by this regulation, even though it seems like they were supposed to be the targets. All the other sites suffer as a result, while only large ones like NYT stay viable. Many smaller players are now looking at paywalls or patronage to stay in business. You can easily avoid sites you do not like but I don't see what that has to do with integrity (of…

I don’t mind paywalls. I do mind paying with my information rather than with money without being given an option.

You have an option: dont visit the site. Nobody is forcing you to read that content.

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

#420

Post by manigandham »

soared wrote: post #227
plausibilities wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What isn't true? That JS is everywhere in ads?
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