Slashdot Mirror
Why Do Contextual Ads Fail?
minstrelmike writes If we give up all our privacy on-line for contextual ads, then how come so many of them are so far off the mark? Personal data harvesting for contextual ads and content should be a beautiful thing. They do it privately and securely, and it's all automated so that no human being actually learns anything about you. And then the online world becomes customized, just for you. The real problem with this scenario is that is we're paying for contextual ads and content with our personal data, but we're not getting what we pay for. Facebook advertising is off target and almost completely irrelevant. The question is: Why? Facebook has a database of our explicitly stated interests, which many users fill out voluntarily. Facebook sees what we post about. It knows who we interact with. It counts our likes, monitors our comments and even follows us around the Web. Yet, while the degree of personal data collection is extreme, the advertising seems totally random.
Because there's always going to be a disproportionate amount of ads delivered for those willing to spend the most money on them. If there's 30,000 users who actually like fast food, and McDonalds pays for 5 million impressions per day, people who don't like McDonalds are going to have some golden arches shoved in their face.
I don't think that there's any such thing as an advert that I actually want to see.
yeah. I know that when I look for something - like motorcycle boots, I see tons of ads for motorcycle boots. The problem - they are the SAME boots I already looked at. If I wanted THOSE I would have bought them. Give me other boots. Stupid.
Do people really still browse the web without an ad blocker plugin?
And then the online world becomes customized, just for you.
Fuck that, just give me the information. I don't need no customization. There's a reason AdBlock exists.
It's bad enough we have to put up with shitty web sites 'designed' by people trying to show off how shiny, but unusable, things can be, we don't need ads trying to predict what we want adding to the damage.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I could not disagree with this more. There is nothing "beautiful" about harvesting personal data to serve contextual ads. I doesn't matter how well-targeted the ads are -- ads are not a benefit to me at all. The real problem with this scenario is that my personal data gets harvested in the first place.
I know and deal with a lot of marketing people every day. People get very confused about what marketing really is... to the point that most don't really know. Marketing primary product is: Marketing
They spend about 95% of their time proving they are worth keeping around. They do things like send free gifts to 100 targets considered to be "Leads" Then, later, when a salesman makes a sale to that person they claim "See? We made that happen!" But if you ask the salesman about the deal he says "I call everyone... every month. They launched a marketing campaign for winter coats in October. Of course they bought one. The free pen had nothing to do with it."
So what did the free pen really do? Allowed marketing to run a report showing a correlation between the pen and the sale, then suggest to management that is was a CAUSE not a correlation.
So now we're going down the same rabbit hole with the internet. Want to fix it? Disprove their nonsense data. Show that this garbage doesn't work. It shouldn't be that hard given the amount of data captured. Pop-up adds generate clicks... but do they generate sales? No... and it took a while for the industry to realize that, but they did.
The difference between Facebook and Amazon, with Facebook, you are the product, not the customer; with Amazon, you are the customer, not the product being sold.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I don't understand all the comments expressing bafflement as to why you get ads for something you already purchased. The contextual advertising company has no access to your purchase history... if they are going to serve an ad, guessing that you might have already not made a purchase is not a bad start. Is it usually wrong? Sure! Most ads are ineffective. But it's way better than showing the same ad to some random schmuck.
And why do you see Amazon ads after you've already purchased something from Amazon? Well, if you did ANY web browsing at all about it prior to the purchase, it likely got picked up by a contextual advertising company, which, again, has no access to your purchase history, and therefore has no idea they are serving an Amazon ad for something you already bought. The ad may not even be paid for by Amazon; it could just as easily be an affiliate marketer.
Facebook sees what we post about. It knows who we interact with. It counts our likes, monitors our comments and even follows us around the Web.
Facebook is banned here, precisely for trying that shit. Facebook domains don't resolve.
Same here