Well targeted ads are basically useless to the consumer since if you actually need something then you know this and you can search for it. The market operating in ad networks optimizes ads that sell enough to pay for more ads while remaining profitable, there is no mechanic that bubbles the best/least expensive offer to consumers since they are not the customer.
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I get not caring about this. I don't get how anyone who understands how it works would not understanding the popular interest in subverting this mess.
Well said. From the consumers point of view? this makes a lot of sense. An ad should convey no credibility.
What I find interesting here is that even as the customer, most of the data passed down to the small business owner (say, me when I'm buying display ads) is massaged by folks who are way smarter than I am, and who have an interest in taking credit for as much of my profitability as possible. I mean, it's possible that they have a better view than I do of what causes people to choose me... really, it's kinda likely. but they have no interest in sharing that data with me, and I lack the ability to understand that data even if they did want to share it with me.
I think the upshot is that most 'targeted ads' are not nearly as effective as the buyers of said ads are lead to believe. Sure, I can buy ads that bring up my company when a user searches for "VPS" or "Linux VPS" or what have you, but I don't think people are going to buy from me unless they've actually heard about me from a credible source. I mean,
Personally? when I buy advertising, one of my first questions is "Do I want to be associated with the content on the page" - I think of it more as 'sponsorship' - you know, when a beer company sponsors a baseball team. I think a lot of the value I get out of advertising is that association with the community, and the more intermediaries you have between me and the community generating the content, the less value I see in the transaction.
Really, Eivind Uggedal[1] probably deserves 80% of every advertising dollar I've spent in the last four years.
[1]http://uggedal.com/journal/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-... (yes, yes, I know he did one later where linode kicked my ass, (I argue that was because linode gives you more vcpus, optimizing for best case, while I give you fewer, optimizing for worst-case, but as far as I can tell, they have some I/O monitoring sauce I don't, that really is better) but still, things like that are what I think is primarily responsible for people going through with a purchase... that and word of mouth. Paying google because they gave me the 'last click' is kinda silly.)
Comments
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Well said. From the consumers point of view? this makes a lot of sense. An ad should convey no credibility.
What I find interesting here is that even as the customer, most of the data passed down to the small business owner (say, me when I'm buying display ads) is massaged by folks who are way smarter than I am, and who have an interest in taking credit for as much of my profitability as possible. I mean, it's possible that they have a better view than I do of what causes people to choose me... really, it's kinda likely. but they have no interest in sharing that data with me, and I lack the ability to understand that data even if they did want to share it with me.
I think the upshot is that most 'targeted ads' are not nearly as effective as the buyers of said ads are lead to believe. Sure, I can buy ads that bring up my company when a user searches for "VPS" or "Linux VPS" or what have you, but I don't think people are going to buy from me unless they've actually heard about me from a credible source. I mean,
Personally? when I buy advertising, one of my first questions is "Do I want to be associated with the content on the page" - I think of it more as 'sponsorship' - you know, when a beer company sponsors a baseball team. I think a lot of the value I get out of advertising is that association with the community, and the more intermediaries you have between me and the community generating the content, the less value I see in the transaction.
Really, Eivind Uggedal[1] probably deserves 80% of every advertising dollar I've spent in the last four years.
[1]http://uggedal.com/journal/vps-comparison-between-slicehost-... (yes, yes, I know he did one later where linode kicked my ass, (I argue that was because linode gives you more vcpus, optimizing for best case, while I give you fewer, optimizing for worst-case, but as far as I can tell, they have some I/O monitoring sauce I don't, that really is better) but still, things like that are what I think is primarily responsible for people going through with a purchase... that and word of mouth. Paying google because they gave me the 'last click' is kinda silly.)