Study: marketers question effectiveness of retargeting ads
marketingdive.com
marketingdive.com
I already purchased this
I already purchased a competing product
I am not interested in this anymore
I was never interested in this
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
This would allow the viewer to feel more in control (assuming the advertiser actually attempts to respect their wishes) as well as giving them valuable feedback (that they can decide for themselves how meaningful it is). It might reduce the number of people that install ad blockers.
I'm one of those that these ads are likely to be effective on: I often browse Amazon or Ebay and don't make a purchase, but will purchase it later when I'm reminded and am in the right mood to spend a bit of money. I don't mind them tracking me....most of the time. Right now I'm seeing a lot of ads for skateboard wheels, digital pianos and Dremel bits.... and I actually kind of like those ads because those are things that make me happy, and I have no ill will whatsoever for people that manufacture those things. I also have no ill will for the site I am on and would like them to have a revenue model.
But I don't want them constantly trying to sell me women's bikinis just because, in a moment of weakness or boredom, I clicked on a picture of a cute girl because I wanted to see it bigger....and they won't simply let me tell them that.
Advertisements were something we grudgingly accepted for reduced service costs, IMO they have reduced their own value so far that the quantity we are expected to consume is ridiculous. I would really appreciate the whole industry getting regulated out of existence.
I disagree that every single entity that has a product they want me to know about doesn't have my best interests at heart. At the very least, my interests are aligned with companies that produce things that bring me value. In what sense does a company that produces that the skateboard wheels that go on my daughter's skateboard and my skateboard not have my interests at heart? The existence of that product (and the other necessary parts) brings the two us immense joy, disproportionate with the $20 a set they cost.
I also don't really wish for the web sites that put ads on them to either go out of business or put up a paywall or something.
I do, however support the idea of there being an easy way for you to pay a fair and reasonable subscription fee to see sites ad free. It would be great if all the biggest advertising companies (Google, Amazon, etc) came up with a plan for that, and individual web sites didn't have to deal with it beyond what they already do to show the ads.
This portion of marketing is the portion I feel sad for because this is where people who are trying to (actually) offload excess inventory or to unseat an entrenched business fall. I object less (personally) to marketing that is trying to provide information, BUT, this sort of marketing can be passive - if you are selling a new type of device to clean carpets that is going to obsolete the vacuum cleaner, set up a website for anyone interested in cleaning products.
Most advertising isn't of this sort and is instead trying to shift your decision making. If you really want good wheels for your daughter's skateboard does the fact that some crazy cartoon tiger thinks they're grrreat make them better wheels? Would you prefer to just have access to real information on the different wheels available to compare them by quality and price?
This is a very difficult thing to solve because imparting knowledge neutrally is either impossible or something that we in the modern world have entirely unlearned, but I do believe the majority of customers do feel this way - we'd prefer to have access to that information when we want it and we'd really hope that it's being processed by a neutral third party that can cut all the BS out of the pitch.
No, I haven't seen a crazy cartoon tiger used to advertise skateboard wheels. I just saw amazon ads on web pages, showing the wheels.
I don't agree with all marketing tactics and I doubt many do. But I don't see the world in black and white. I see the benefits of having online companies that I can order from, and the benefits of having a way for web sites that provide useful services to make some revenue without requiring subscription plans.
As I said, though, I think people like you who hate ads but who wants those services (I assume you use some free web sites that aren't Hacker News) should be able to subscribe easily to something that lets you opt out of ads. I even could support legislation that requires companies that advertise and track people across sites to offer such plans for a fee that approximates what they'd make by showing you ads.
I have a small business, and it's a business that people love.
When I first opened my business I was getting almost no customers because I had no way of informing people about my business.
With advertising, I'm getting clients and my business is doing well. I don't use manipulative tactics or remarketing, but I do use targeted ads to find out what kind of people are looking for my services and market to them by including a short direct blurb about what I do.
As a result, people who need my services can get it at a price they can afford. Another happy result of advertising is I am able to have my own business and bring greater competition to a market place that is dominated by old boys type businesses. The only down side is that some people who didn't want to see a blurb had to see it.
Why is this bad?
Maybe manipulative advertising tactics are bad, maybe advertising that relies on building brand recognition rather than stating value is bad. But I really don't understand why paying to inform people that my business exists and tell them what I do is a bad thing. I think it's a great thing.
I can say this, without modern affordable advertising my business wouldn't exist. Not because I don't provide value, not because there are better more competitive businesses but because people would have no way of finding out that I exist. I don't have the money for a fancy storefront with a fancy sign. I don't have the money to be at the front of the yellow pages. I don't have the age and established connections to get people through referral. All I have is a good idea, and the only way to communicate that idea to the public is advertising.
Maybe there is bad advertising and abuses of advertising. But please let's think twice before throwing out the baby with the bath water.
There was that famous study by Lee Benham who found that eye glasses were 20% cheaper in places that allowed for advertising. I don't know how much we can generalize that finding but I do think that a strong argument can be made that information is big component of the competitive marketplace. Meaning basically I have to be able to inform people about my product. If only huge businesses that can advertise on TV or get sports endorsements or have politicians or celebrities mention them have the capacity to inform people about their products, then they will dominate the market. Internet marketing is the great equalizer that gives little guys like me a chance.
Right now I’m researching a product I’m about to buy, because I have an actual need. In the process I consult various sources listing and comparing products of that category. Allthough most of those sources can’t be trusted to provide unbiased information, I’m pretty confident the sum will give me a pretty good overview of the search space.
Instead of being a (friendly?) reminder that "hey, want to check us out again?", it's more like "hi, you've seen this 25 times at least, you sure you don't want to click me?"
So they spend an awful lot of money on what is visual spam rather than being a bit more measured in their frequency cap.
This happens. Personally, I do remember and sometimes blacklist companies that annoy me with ads too much. E.g. way before Groupon got known for being a force of destruction of small businesses, they pissed me off with retargeted ads, and earned a lifetime ban.
You too? Can't believe I'm not the only one. I used to see their crap every single time on Youtube a few years back (before I discovered adblockers).
Their brand was definitely imprinted in my mind so I guess it's a success... just a shame it's imprinted in the "go burn in hell" part of my mind.
I personally like retargeting and I'm infinitely more likely to click on it than other things I see in the same box.
The monotony of the channel makes it appear almost like a browser history. Not exactly thrilling, but when the competition is outbrain and snake oil, it's a non-trivial improvement.
Agreed on outbrain/taboola/etc.. I don't know how tabloid clickbait generates anyone clicks or even revenue.
I also would be absolutely unsurprised to learn that "participating in your service to shut your emails up" is a tactic seen as legitimate by some companies... (facebook, I was talking specifically about facebook because they are terrible)
".. Unlike typical banner ads, retargeting ads are a form of online targeting advertising and are served to people who have already visited your website or are a contact in your database (like a lead or customer). .." [1]
My general feeling is that technology needed for modern advertisement industry, and for law-enforcement/government/political online surveillance -- is almost identical.
No wonder, that companies specialized in technology to enable audience-specific ads, and 're-targeting' -- are the same companies that are looked for to supply/integrate surveillance technology.
I am even now connecting the dots with advancements of Image recognitions, deep neural nets, -- with the drive for better surveillance technology, under the cover of targeted advertisement (as face recognition benefits both).
I am also no wondering if much of much opposition/road-blocks to people using VPN (eg Google.com constantly asked me to choose bunch of pictures before I can use it, with VPN) --- is the negative commercial impact that VPN usage has, on targeted advertisement, and surveillance.
[1]https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/retargeting-campaigns-beg...
The 'fingerprinting' is used instead.
"... From Meteora’s personal fingerprinting BETA we have been able to identify 97% of Internet users to date.
…"
Because these things are action oriented, they are fairly measurable, and ad buyers should have a pretty good grip on this, as opposed to say brand advertising.
I’ve found retargeting effectiveness to be highly dependent on the inventory, ad units and creative, while also requiring a robust attribution model to gauge the effect.
Without those tools, it is just throwing money at the wall without being able to see if it sticks.
At small sizes they can indeed drive some value as you have a small audience that needs to know your name, but as you scale it starts to get pretty hit or miss.
A regular sized furniture store might have 100k unique devices in their retargeting pool, but a prospecting (acqusition) audience (lets say in-market for furniture) would be 500k+ unique devices.
Branded SEM is another area that you can't trust the numbers. You'll have an amazing return because people were searching for your brand in the first place.
If you lump brand keyword and non-brand keyword bidding together, the ROAS/ROI (depending how you measure) looks good, but then when you break out just non-brand, you often see how terrible the return is. Not always, but often.
Google loves branded KW bidding, because it cannibalizes traffic that 90%+ would go to an organic result. Even with a lower CPC, the high CTR means that on a CPM basis, Google is making more per impression (nevermind the trend of the Chrome omnibox preferring branded queries than direct navigation queries-- Google can't make money if their SERPs aren't shown). Bad marketers will say "it is a low CPC and a high conversion rate", but is that better than no CPC? It is just shifting free traffic to paid. SEM has changed so much over the last 5 years. It is so much more difficult for per unit profitability on search, too many people don't understand their margins and are overpaying. It kind of feels that digital is reaching equilibrium with traditional media, but it is easier to measure that it isn't working.