If you've every done anything with behavioral analysis online you'll quickly learn that users say they want one thing and then often behave the exact opposite.
First. If you ask users if they would use a site that has ads, the percentage that say they don't want ads (which is probably a majority) are also the same ones that won't pay for the site.
This is a demonstration of consumer irrationality. It's usually either A or B.. not neither A nor B.
There are basically three main revenue models online:
1. ads.
2. paid content.
3. you're the product.
Now #3 might not ALWAYS be bad. Duolingo for example can use the feedback they get from users using the app to improve the service and some users DO pay to remove the ads. When you're using it in a freemium capacity you're actually paying to help train Duolingo.
With Facebook they're mostly #3...
A better way to do this would be behavioral analysis.
The first is to find out if consumers want ads or would they rather pay for a service directly.
The answer is overwhelmingly in favor of them NOT paying directly. They would rather be the product or see ads.
Don't believe me? Do you see any social networks that charge money? There are some somewhat freemium platforms like Wordpress (which still has ads) but for the most part the vast majority of the revenue online does not come directly from consumers.
Now... do users want customized ads?
Again. The data is overwhelming here.
Between two ads, one tailored to the user , and another random ad, the more targeted it is the greater conversion rate.
Hide content and just show ads? What? Who ever suggested anything like that? If other sites are doing this, then they're messing up too. So I've no idea what are you talking about.
They are loading ad impressions that aren't visible. That's a major problem, because it's preventable. Why don't they track scroll –which I'm sure they do already– and load ads accordingly. Their only defense would be that they load the ads, but don't charge for them unless the user scrolls.
Surely just aesthetic pleasure is worth something? Shall we all live, work and play in brutalist utilitarian buildings unless it can be demonstrated that there are better results from something else?
I used to work at eharmony. One of the biggest complaints we had from users was that paid users were still shown ads. The users hated it, but the analytics showed that we made more money with the ads than without the ads so to hell with the users' experience on the site, we had better results with the ads.
I still don't see the problem here. They're a small, selective network, with relevant ads that don't need to be intrustive to add value. I think the author is saying that more of these are part of the solution, as they can tune ads to the members of the network, based on actual feedback rather than engaging in a shouting match decided by 10-figure analytics.
sometimes annoying UX can turn users away instead of leading the users to give them money.
They know the ads are annoying and can turn users away. So they nudge the users with one of those "hey, these ads suck don't they? pay us for an ad-free experience" during ad spots or in place of ad spots.
I don't think I've used another service that uses so many of their prime ad spots to try to advertise getting rid of ads.
This may also suggest that Spotify makes muchmuchmuch less than $10/user/month on ads. So much less that they can afford not to show paid ads in an ad spot if it'll lead to more paying users. Which I'd agree. Or maybe supply and demand kicks in and they just up their ads pricing as a result of showing less ads. But I don't think the ad-buying market can bear increases in ad pricing, otherwise facebook could just up their ads pricing instead of destroying the newsfeed with so many ads, which hurts user retention.
It’s too much money to turn down. The costs are next to nothing.
Sure, there might be some effects where a few users are turned off and leave the platform, but the loss of those users is likely outweighed by the gains from advertising, probably by a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have A/B tested that to the extent that they can.
You are welcome to hate it but that’s the calculation they and everyone else who serves ads has made.
Interesting to see how far he pendulum has swung that a lot (well a certain kind) of users aren’t even wanting ads to pay for their consumption anymore! Is it because of the advances in deep and psychological/manipulative targeting we’ve seen recently or just in general?
It's kind of obvious that for pretty much any ad supported service good user experience is in direct conflict with revenue. But I think this is not about that. It looks more like a PR piece combined with an attempt to reach more people.
> Advertising works there because of the numbers. People will quickly consume enough bite sized content to drive traditional numbers.
To be more specific, advertising works there because of the feed algorithms. The platforms gather data about user interests and use that to tune what they choose to show the users, favoring things the algorithms suggest will get more "engagement". In turn, they sell ads on those favored items. On top of that, they charge both users and advertisers a premium to be featured on the favored topics.
Take away the algorithms that determine what content and ads to feature, and you get back to the basics of blogging websites. You get happier users, but no advertising money.
Maybe. To me it simply shows that removing ads is not a big enough benefit make people pay. Which makes sense because people are now used to ads. They will consume the content either way.
The pay users to see ads thing has been going around in ad circles for a long time, but seems to be fundamentally misplaced. Advertisers at that point are paying more than they need to (to get the message to the user) and the results will be skewed (by people who are trying to make money) resulting in declining and inefficient performance. It also means the advertiser is trying to pay the user and hopefully get them to pay them back in return by purchasing their product, which leads to a broken cycle.
Potentially these paying users weren’t the market anyway. Someone willing to pay to not see your ads maybe hostile to any brand forcing them in front of their eyeballs.
These guys make plenty of cash with those ads. The bigger problem is that it is one of the only options they have and it comes with the price tag of some users complaining about the experience.
And why would they not also be responsive to the wants and the needs of the customers who look at the ads, without which the model would not be profitable?
They had to create a service people want to use in order to be able to put ads on it.
Is the whole point of all this data collection nonsense really just to serve me irrelevant ads I never click? What are they doing with all this worthless information?
I downloaded a shitty freemium mobile game once and now 80% of my Instagram ads have been ads for shitty mobile games for more than a year. Is this really the best the 500k+ a year ad magicians at Meta came up with? Is this what gives Meta its trillion market cap? Just like Amazon serving me ads for washing machines, right after I bought one. And Google Maps promoting shitty restaurants and services I don't want to go to. Is this the cake apple wants a share of?
They ASKED users what they wanted.
If you've every done anything with behavioral analysis online you'll quickly learn that users say they want one thing and then often behave the exact opposite.
First. If you ask users if they would use a site that has ads, the percentage that say they don't want ads (which is probably a majority) are also the same ones that won't pay for the site.
This is a demonstration of consumer irrationality. It's usually either A or B.. not neither A nor B.
There are basically three main revenue models online:
1. ads. 2. paid content. 3. you're the product.
Now #3 might not ALWAYS be bad. Duolingo for example can use the feedback they get from users using the app to improve the service and some users DO pay to remove the ads. When you're using it in a freemium capacity you're actually paying to help train Duolingo.
With Facebook they're mostly #3...
A better way to do this would be behavioral analysis.
The first is to find out if consumers want ads or would they rather pay for a service directly.
The answer is overwhelmingly in favor of them NOT paying directly. They would rather be the product or see ads.
Don't believe me? Do you see any social networks that charge money? There are some somewhat freemium platforms like Wordpress (which still has ads) but for the most part the vast majority of the revenue online does not come directly from consumers.
Now... do users want customized ads?
Again. The data is overwhelming here.
Between two ads, one tailored to the user , and another random ad, the more targeted it is the greater conversion rate.
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