I think the point is that there is a middle ground between showing completely random ads and showing what someone already bought.
If I bought a vaccum maybe I want vacuum accessories, or vacuum bags (if it's not a reusable), or maybe I want more appliances for the house, and so on.
Yet it would still be better to show useful ads. To try and predict what you would buy next, instead of showing more of what you've just bought. Its astonishing how 'little bit better than random' they are.
Targeted ads are almost universally pretty terrible. My reaction to seeing a targeted ad usually falls into one of these categories:
- I already bought that recently, why would I need another one?
- I already decided which variety of thing you're showing me I will buy, this ad isn't helpful to me.
- Why are you spying on me? That's creepy, I'm not going to click that ad even if it was exactly the thing I wanted to buy right now.
I expect that this experience isn't extraordinarily unique. Having less targeted ads is actually somewhat helpful because it maintains the pretense that ad companies aren't spying on you constantly.
Strange random ads are ok compared to seeing creepy demographically targeted ads. Also, there are only so many national brands who are willing to spend money indiscriminately.
Ads are pointless. No matter how much human capital was invested in making targeted ads possible, only very rarely I see something that I might be interested in buying. And I can't remember a thing that I bought due to ads. They are a better signal of what to not buy.
i'm not sure i've ever seen an ad that i considered helpful, useful, or was grateful to see
i get the dream and i buy things all the time but for me ads don't make that buying experience easier because i dont trust any of the content in them so it doesn't save me any time on researching what i want to buy. i'd rather have irrelevant ads because maybe they are easier to ignore and they won't serve as a constant reminder of how much data companies have on me. seeing an ad for something i recently searched on a different company's site generally makes me unhappy.
I for one am enjoying the new world of random ads I am getting. It feels like being let out of a bubble. I get to see all sorts of products I had never thought about. Not relevant ones, but the personalized ads never worked anyway.
Personalized ads were always about showing you ads for diapers just after your child had outgrown them, or ads for a crappy car just after you had bought a good car. Meh.
I don't agree with your targeted ads assessment. My targeted ads are so right it is downright spooky. I swear I have only THOUGHT about buying some obscure item and then boom there it is right there in a sidebar ad.
Honestly I don't even mind, I'd rather look at ads for things I want, rather than things I have no interest in.
All right. I try my best to keep my adverts as random as possible(if they appear at all), since somehow it feels like I'm being passively influenced by viewing the same sort of adverts suggesting I buy stuff repeatedly.
The way they're sticking ads on everything with or without tracking is pretty annoying. I hope they lose money with the tech they had to dev and install vs ad returns.
My perception of ads is they are more automated and naive than they should be.
I get an ad for something I want. I get it. Then I don't need it anymore, but I get the same ad over and over again as if it went from a single thing I wanted to a hoarding obsession.
Then by chance I get an ad for something I want, but I want it later in the year, not today. I click the ad but don't get it.
When I want it, after few months, it is never shown again, and I get dozens of generic unrelated ads instead.
I'm pretty sure that admitting this will make me uncool, but I like ads.
Not the annoying ones mind you, it your ad interrupts me, you deserve to be punished. My time is precious to me.
However, if your ad just sits there, off to the side or at the top of the page or whatever (or off-web, in a billboard, or poster or display at the store, whatever) I'm ok with it. See, what that does it notify me of the existence of things. Many of those things are actually useful to my life. By keeping me up to date of what exists, I can be far more efficient when it comes time to deal with problems, wants and needs. In the least useful case, I can at least know who does the things I am looking to get done. In the most useful case, I will be aware that there are tools to solve a problem I may have otherwise spent days on (or even given up on solving and worked around). This saves me time and effort. I am OK with that. Seriously, how else would I go about finding something I didn't know existed without tons of effort otherwise -- I probably wouldn't even know to look for it.
I really don't understand the anti-ad people. Oh no! Someone is trying to sell you something... the horror. Oh no, you haven't spent 30s teaching yourself to not be distracted by something shiny, way to waste your human capability to learn.
It regularly turns out on google that the ad links are exactly what I am looking to buy, so I click and give everyone the conversion, because honestly, it doesn't hurt me to do so, and keeps this amazingly useful tool that is "good search" available to me at no additional cost.
Whatever, I'm probably below average intelligence, and am one of the dumb folks that doesn't magically understand every single thing in existence via pure thought, and must be informed instead.
Most people will be more annoyed than anything else at seeing a "random" ad, in the same way it's just more painful, for example, for a guy to sit through a 30 second women's shampoo TV commercial than a car commercial.
I'd say most people don't even realize they may or may not be triggered, they simply don't want to suffer through a completely irrelevant ad.
I suspect that this is a bit skewed by the fact that targeted ads, as they are typically done, are a horrible experience that has little transparency and that the user has very little control over.
Some people are just going to hate all ads no matter what. I'd guess a much larger number (including me) would see them as a reasonable way to support web sites and services that they like, if those ads were to give them much better experience, and that mostly means more control. For one, I suggest that ads have a way you can express, with a couple clicks (and without leaving the page) one of the following:
- I already purchased this
- I already purchased a competing product
- I am not interested in this anymore
- I was never interested in this
- This ad is too creepy or personal or otherwise makes me uncomfortable
- this ad is obnoxious / distracting / ugly / disturbing
- I don't want this displayed because it might reveal something private to an onlooker (example: gift purchase for spouse)
- I'm not interested in this product but I might be interested in competing products
- I'm in the market for ______________ and I don't mind getting ads for them
- Thanks for the reminder, not now but maybe later
- Ads that track me really annoy me
Of course, in addition to collecting this information, it should act on it in a reasonable way. It would also be nice if it was accompanied by an option to pay a small, reasonable amount to remove ads.
For whatever reason, ad companies don't seem to want to do this sort of thing. It may take legislation, which I would certainly get behind.
I have yet to see a relevant ad that is actually relevant to me. 99% of the time I just get things recommended that I either just bought or have generally no interest in. I get better results from random ads, sometimes I find interesting links in those.
They get shown ads that might be more relevant to them than just an ad picked at random, which might make them more likely to buy the product displayed in the ad. I guess that could lead to some extra harm to their wallets, but otherwise I am with you on this one.
Same. I really don’t see the problem with targeted ads. Is it really that bad to get an ad for something you bought before vs. something completely random? How is that even any worse?
Remember, we are talking about the ads themselves, not data collection or anything like that even though it’s obviously very closely related.
Those Vacuum and First Aid ads are probably 10x more effective than random ads.
Randomly showing ads for people is actually not economical in most ways.
Showing ads for stuff that people have randomly bought, probably is.
It 'feels' annoying because totally random ads don't jump out at you, while the targeted ads do - you notice them.
Ironically, it's the very fact that you notice them gives hints as to why they are powerful.
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