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Comment by androng | Hacker News Reader

I invested in META stock because I have an addiction to instagram and the tracking is so good that the ads are actually tailored to me and my desires so my CTR is i think 7% on average. contrast with YouTube and Google and Twitter where I block all the ads because the CTR is 0.00% because they are all garbage. Instagram keeps showing me ads for expensive stuff I don't need but I do want, like meal kits and fancy clothes

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When Facebook first came out, you could run an ad for $5 and the ads are often things I happily clicked on.

Granted, it was by and for college students, so there was an inherent selection bias. Still, Zuckerberg built his whole empire on getting enough data about people to show ads that are so targeted they feel relevant.

I've found the same. I actually enjoy Instagram ads. I despise almost every other ad I can think of.

You enjoy the ads, but do you enjoy the products?

I’ve seen so many ads that show a nice product, so I click and it takes me to nice polished landing page, which leads to a smooth checkout flow. But then the thing arrives and it’s garbage. I believe that there’s an entire genre of niche-marketed consumer goods that have been broken by Campbell/Goodharts law because they’ve integrated the product design and marketing so tightly that the product is designed to optimize CTR and funnel conversions rather than being a good at being the thing that it is.

The joke is that Instagram is QVC for millennials, it must be working on/for some people.

Yeah, I've had one that seemed like exactly something I wanted, turned out to be a scam, and they fucked it up enough that PayPal actually refunded me.

There's a particular Instagram ad my wife always sees for a graphic tee with a design that we both love, but the vendor selling it is (according to Reddit reviews) garbage. The infuriating thing is that no one else seems to sell a shirt with that particular design!

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