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Comment by Guest9812398 | Hacker News Reader

Why can't we simply choose relevant ad categories that we would prefer to see? Why do the options need to be (i) see random advertisements that are likely irrelevant, or (ii) allow us to track your every move, including your location, each site you visit with the Facebook widget, your message and call history, and your every click.

Or non-Facebook related, why can't my smart TV just let me choose PC Gaming, Technology, and Concert advertisements as highest priority. I might actually look forward to watching an Oculus or Vive advertisement, instead of putting the TV on mute, or leaving the room when I see another health insurance commercial for someone 60+.

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Why can't ads be relevant to the content of the page like they used to be in the good old days?

As an example of stupid targeted ads: I bought a Casper mattress a couple of months ago and pretty much every single ad I've seen since then (on devices where I don't have them blocked) has been for mattresses. How many mattresses does the internet think I need?

If I'm reading about something on the internet it's generally because I'm interested in it. Why not try to sell me something related to that rather than something I already bought!?

My guess, some people buy a mattress and end up unhappy with it, return it, and buy something else. This is enough people that it's worth showing mattress ads to all recent mattress buyers.

My guess is bad purchase tracking

Why would a vendor send a signal back to Facebook or an ad company that their competitors should stop spending money on useless ads?

I see these all the time too.

1. I bought one of those spinning face brushes for my girlfriend. A few minutes after purchasing online, I started seeing advertisements from that same store, for the same exact brush. Literally 90% of the page views were showing that advertisement.

2. I was browsing Airbnb accommodation for a trip to let's say Mexico. I was checking apartments on and off for weeks. I didn't see any Airbnb advertisements during that time. The minute I book that accommodation, Airbnb starts showing advertisements for rooms in Mexico.

3. I'm browsing barbers in a new city. No advertisements until I book an appointment with one online. Then, I start seeing advertisements for the same barbershop. Now, that has potential, but the advertisements stopped after a week. Why do I need to book a second hair appointment in the same week? Why not recognize I booked a men's haircut, and start showing me ads in a few weeks?

For all the tracking, privacy invasion, and fancy "machine learning", advertising sure is dumb.

Maybe it's optimizing for the wrong thing. Maybe the goal of targeted advertising is to find the people who were about to buy something anyways, shove an ad for it in front of them just in time, and take a cut[1]:

> Our results indicate that more sophisticated targeting algorithms might not gain, and might even harm, the advertiser as those seeing the ad would convert in the absence of advertising.

There are a bunch of ad-tech people on this site; maybe some of them could chime in and share how many more sales they make using total surveillance versus basic keyword-in-page.

[1] https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7020000840130690...

A little over two years ago, I Googled the name of a local Dodge/RAM dealership (on my iPad, thus no ad blocker) so I could browse their selection online before I ventured over there. That afternoon, I bought a new truck (from that dealership).

For almost A YEAR afterwards, I would constantly see ads about RAM trucks and various dealerships in my area (including the one I Googled and bought the truck from) when browsing the web on my iPad. Not every ad, of course, but certainly often enough that I would notice it a couple times a week and just laugh and shake my head at the dealerships who were just throwing their ad dollars away.

I've wondered this for a long time. As someone who pretty much despises ads, I'd be willing to just tell advertisers what I want to see and turn off adblock rather than have them guess what I want to see(which is usually either something I don't want to buy or something I've already purchased).

If they would just ask me what my interests are and stop allowing shady/malicious ads, I'd probably just turn off adblock.

Because ads are about selling you something you didn't think you wanted.

Then why do I keep getting ads for things I already bought?

Well, for one, because one of the biggest ad vectors is retargeting. The ads aren't split in tiny overly broad categories.

If you pick "videogame", unless they ask you if you like RPGs, which videogame do they advertise to you?

(not saying it's WORTH it, but ad tech is pretty darn sophisticated these days)

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