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Comment by meterplech | Hacker News Reader

I think the dirty not-so-secret of advertising is that for most content on the web the ads are awful, poorly targeted (or at best basic retargeted). Many content producers want to focus on building great content, so advertisers go for low CPMs and spray and pray. This is why the brands are so interested in Facebook and other platforms that seem to be able to deliver great content and are, increasingly, willing to pay the differential.

It's impressive to see StackOverflow putting this together in-house and I imagine it'll continue to be a competitive differentiator for companies that can pull it off going forward.

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I once googled (before I had privacy plugins) for a coffee machine. Bought coffee machine. I was stalked by coffee machine ads for a month.

Had the same thing happen to me with a monitor. I neglected to install an ad-blocker right away on that freshly installed computer. Not making that mistake again.

Amazon is the worst about this. "You just bought an ITEM_X, clearly you want to buy ITEM_X_CLONE as well." So stupid.

Try the "this was a gift" checkbox in order history. I've been hesitant to share this as I don't want it to stop working, but it's magic for me. Allows you to select what you want ads for in the future.

Yeah, the algorithm behind that is insanely stupid for a company with so many technical resources. No, Amazon, I don't want to buy three more $1,300 SLR cameras.

I think that's why I find it particularly inexcusable. No company pulling in that much money, with that kind of tech muscle, should have a recommendation system that poor.

Once in awhile it will reanimate old purchases too.

I took a class in college many years ago to meet a diversity requirement that involved reading a bunch of books about gay Latinos. I'm neither gay nor Latino, but something refreshes that connection -- every couple of years they decide to hit me up with books on the topic, including books that I bought for the class.

Maybe their algorithms is trying to any nostalgia you might be having for some old topic? In your case they figured wrong, but I can see how it could work for old games, movies, music, tv shows, etc.

It's the worst when ITEM_X is a large TV. I wonder what percentage of TV buyers will impulse-buy a second TV because of "you might also like.." recommendations. Can't they make a list of products compatible with my TV and sell me that?

I'm sure they could. I certainly got an email from them a few weeks after buying a camera offering me accessories for it.

I wish there was a way to tell an advertiser "I Bought it, stop bothering me".

I don't want to completely block ads because I understand how they bring in money, but there has to be a way to interact with them a bit to make them less annoying.

I have searched for help info about Xero. I already use it, but repeatedly get their ads now.

Saddest bit is that I own Xero shares, so not excited that they're wasting money on ads!

Targeting is pretty difficult unless you have a well-defined audience or type of content.

My site matches office furniture ads against photo tours of office spaces - fairly is easy to see why they would work. StackOverflow attracts a specific type of person so it seems like the targeting is built-in.

I don't envy a general news site like CNN where you're trying to target specific types of people who read CNN as opposed to an industry vertical.

Hi, your site looks like a great place for my (office furniture) company to advertise. Do you segment by location? How can I find out more?

Ah neat, shoot me a note to stephen@officesnapshots.com :)

Sent!

Just a quick note of gushing praise, OfficeSnapshots is one of my favourite sites, I've been a reader from being a teen to a twenty-something, I never expected the creator to show up on HackerNews!

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