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Comment by jandhdhshhh | Hacker News Reader

Speaking as a consumer, I’ve always found ad targeting to be way off for Google, YouTube or even facebook. The few times I got ads I ChatGPT it was also off. It’s kinda ironic that with all that AI, they choose not to use any of that intelligence to target ads better. It makes you wonder what all those engineers are working on if not the main revenue driver.

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I understand why it's hard, but it's very funny to get ads for a product I've bought for weeks/months after completing the purchase.

I looked for rain boots, and I bought a pair of rain boots. Getting ads for rain boots now isn't going to drive any purchasing, right? Meta or Alphabet get paid still, so the advertisers are getting hosed.

You might return them and get another brand. Even that little positive signal is often worth the wasted impressions because most of the other signals are either so weak or so competitive.

But I won't. From the deepest depths of my heart and my soul, I will not and I will never return something I bought for a competitor's product because I was served an ad.

It's not a positive signal, because for the lifespan of that product I just bought, I have removed myself from the addressable market.

Are you perhaps under the mistaken impression that you’re the only one getting retargeted?

Well as an economic solipsist, I do believe the world has been built and operated fully for my convenience and entertainment

Advertisers getting hosed is pretty much standard with digital ads. Platforms and agencies tell you how amazing their adtech is, but various forms of fraud and dodgy practises seem to be rampant.

It may be that you just aren't a big spender.

My experience with performance adtech was that 95% of the energy went into targeting whales, with a focus on products that drive massive revenue (mobile gaming, gambling, crypto). It's truly insane what these whales are spending.

Sure, there's still a lot of money in the 5%, especially for a surface like ChatGPT where people are making retail decisions. But I'm not particularly shocked if they're a little behind.

>It’s kinda ironic that with all that AI, they choose not to use any of that intelligence to target ads better.

I couldn't possibly be more par for course for OpenAI

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