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Comment by menzoic | Hacker News Reader

Google has a lot more data than Facebook and Amazon combined. The targeting is not just based on your current search query. It forms a model of your behavior using your entire search history and browsing history which contains significantly more personal details about you and isn't limited to what you're willing to share in the public eye of Facebook. They also track your browsing history through every site you visit and Android app you use that serves Google ads (possibly more ecommerce than Amazon globally). They also track your location and travel patterns with Google maps and Android. All of the videos that you watch on Youtube (2nd most visited website in the world, above Facebook) tell a lot about you too. At one point I think data from your emails in Gmail was used but they stopped doing that.

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True, but it seems Google has trouble refining all the raw data it mines. My go-to for passive entertainment is Youtube, and finding something new I like on that platform is like pulling teeth. I don't think anyone important at Alphabet really realizes how bad their overfitting problem is. A major reason why I sold off my investment in them this spring.

All true, but as a potential advertiser you don't really get to use all that targeting when placing ads. Although to be fair that's mostly based on my experience with AdWords.

On Facebook I can advertise to people in a well-defined geographical area, who are interested in a scarily well-defined set of things.

On Google it's more of a just-in-time approach; catching people who are searching for something in a certain place etc.

My business doesn't lend itself to Amazon ads, but I can totally see how it'd generate an ROI far exceeding Google or Facebook for product businesses that sell on Amazon.

> On Google it's more of a just-in-time approach; catching people who are searching for something in a certain place etc.

Adwords location targeting options have been around some time with 3 targeting options for location: http://prntscr.com/kq9coa

And my advice when using this - Adwords defaults to "People in, or who show interest in, your targeted locations" but I would recommend "People in your targeted locations" as the first seems to be a very loose definition by Google and in my experience brings in dud traffic.

Location settings are one of the common set-up mistakes when I see client historic accounts. And there's some good tricks with combining these settings for business that need physical proximity that can make them very effective and flexible.

>as a potential advertiser you don't really get to use all that targeting when placing ads.

you don't need to. since google is interested in providing you cheap relevant clicks, it will deliver them to you without exposing all the targetings. all the data available wil be utilized in choosing the right audience anyway.

This type of "trust us, we know what we're doing" targeting is typically less cost effective for advertisers. The fact it works at all is a technical achievement to be sure, but as far as Google goes I can vouch for the OP.

Well, if you are doing direct response advertising, you can mark (with utm source) and measure any kind of performance metric (CPA, average purchase price, whatever you can come up with), and if their clicks are not cost effective, you can stop buying them.

And if you do branding... branding is hard to measure anyway.

Note -- I'm not affiliated with google in any way, I just think their offering makes a lot of sense.

It depends what sort of business you're running.

If you're selling a product that's available nationally and appeals to a reasonably big demographic, you might not care much about targeting.

But if your business only supplies weddings in New York, then impressions/clicks by people who aren't planning a wedding in New York are largely worthless.

But the initial intent still has to be there. If I sell shampoo noone's gonna see my shampoo PPC ad just because they email a friend to say they've got dry hair. They have to search for a shampoo-related keyword I'm targeting.

And then once I buy shampoo,Amazon can make a deal with the Shampoo manufacturer to send a branded Amazon Dash button for repeat purchases.

If they have an Alexa device, Amazon can get shampoo manufacturers to pay to be the default choice when someone says “Alexa, order more shampoo.”

Not everyone wants to sell their soul. I'd pay extra to not get any of that.

In the aggregate, random posters on HN don’t matter. Enough of the world doesn’t feel that way to make Amazon a very successful company...

On Google, you certainly target by geography.

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722043?hl=en

Disclosure: I work for Google in Ads Developer Relations

You can definitely do the same with Google, but yes more targeting is available as you spend more. Companies spending 8 figures with DBM/AdX get direct access to the bid stream to do whatever targeting they want.

Don't forget that Facebook also knows your browsing habits thanks to Like buttons, retargeting pixels and Facebook Connect integrations all over the web.

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