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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

>that works without tracking.. like a billboard.

Billboards still require tracking. If you had the option of putting a billboard up in 1 of 2 neighborhoods and it would get 10k impressions in either location which one would you choose? The optimal strategy is not to pick randomly. The optimal strategy is to predict the conversion rate of both locations. In order to do that you need to investigate who is likely to see your billboard and learn about their interests to see if they would be likely to be interested.

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Couldn't one say the same of any brick and mortar store? If a shoe store is going to open in my neighborhood, for example, how much data do they need for it to be optimally located? I guess they could seek out the online browsing history of all the friends of all the people living within 1 mile from the shoe store and analyze it.

I don't doubt that billboards are placed with some careful thought, but tracking is certainly not "required" - some aggregate stats about an area should work, especially as there isn't much feedback on who saw the billboard and bought a product etc.

tracking: the act or process of following something or someone

I haven't seen a billboard that would follow me around before. Placing them at popular location depends on existing data (or often just plain-ass thinking, like obviously a hub in the middle of the town will have more people see it compared to the middle of nowhere), and only very very indirectly generates any sort of new data (e.g. if you only place a single ad in a specific place and can correlate that placement with an increase in product sales.. but that is thoroughly unrealistic and I only write it to be nitpicky with myself).

>I haven't seen a billboard that would follow me around before.

I've never seen a png file follow me around either. It's the people who are selling the advertising space that are doing the tracking. They want to show how valuable of a location they can offer you.

> Billboards still require tracking.

What billboard is tracking individuals?

Smart billboards available through Gannett (largest billboard company in US) and track license plate numbers. I used them in Florida until they were banned in 2020.

Billboards that identify car types are still legal AFAIK.

https://www.bmediagroup.com/news/vehicle-recognition-billboa...

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