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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.
Yep, some other reasons:
1) Too many ads are annoying
2) If ads are too well-targeted then they become creepy
3) They often show you ads for things you've just bought. If I get a new laptop why do I want to see more laptop ads?
4) The products may well be out of your price range (a lot of Facebookers are young and broke) & this is more likely to depress the shit out of you than anything else. Just because you chat about Tahiti doesn't mean you can afford to go there.
5) Real-world advertising has increased massively - more TV ads, infomercials, free catalogs, pull-outs in the newspapers, 'sponsored' articles - it all gets a bit too much, so you go online to escape and get blasted with even more of the damn things.
6) Targeting only works sometimes. Example: I look for something on Ebay when logged on & get an email the day after 'Are you still looking for this?' If the answer is yes then cool. On the other hand if I've bought that particular article somewhere else or was just browsing aimlessly then Ebay is wasting my time and bandwidth.
2) If ads are too well-targeted then they become creepy
Creepiest ad I ever saw was ...
You might be interested in this (9 page) NYT Magazine article from 2012, How Companies Learn Your Secrets, about Target's targeted advertising algorithms. One case in point were pregnancy-related ads Target sent to a teenage girl, still living at home with her parents, based on some obscure buying habits. The father was outraged and complained to the store manager. Turns out she was actually pregnant.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .