“I've seen a lot of stories lately around behavioral targeted advertising, and privacy. But in theory, wouldn't you rather see more relevant ads? Isn't this a good thing?”
No. If I need to buy something, I'll track it down on my own. - Jill O'Neill
I'm with @Jill, nothing beats the research, ads are and always will be annoying - Dobromir Hadzhiev
I disagree with Jill. But I need to think about that more. This feeds into a bigger post about advertising that I am noodling on. - Robert Scoble
Some of this stuff would make Joe Goebbels blush. - Amanda Chapel
I think the idea of advertising in general is heinous to most people: it's a necessary evil in order to get free (or cheap) stuff. Advertisers and consumers play a cat-and-mouse game about this central point. When you start doing highly targeted campaigns, even if the advertiser never sees the data (unlikely), it adds a whole other thing people tend to hate: (perceived) invasion of privacy. The outrage is: I already had to look at your stupid ads, that was the deal. Now you're going to take my privacy, too? - Mark Trapp
People don't see the added value for that exchange. So the trick is, how do you make it seem like targeted advertising has value? That's where all the cool advertising that actually works comes in: personal shoppers, viral marketing, word-of-mouth, etc. All very targeted, all seemingly accepted in society (even praised). - Mark Trapp
In my 16 some odd years on the internet, I have to yet to see an ad that I wanted to click on. - Bwana McCall
I was involved with some behavioral targeting initiatives a few years ago at an ad network I worked at. I think it's a win for both advertisers and users and since I realize that ads are what allow me to receive great free content and services I welcome them. - Mark Krynsky
@Bwana, so wouldn't behavioral targeted advertising reduce the noise that's there? If I like to read about baseball, shouldn't I see ads for baseball tickets on another site? That'd bug me less than ads asking to reduce my mortgage interest payments. - Louis Gray
I totally agree here. The problem of ocurse is all the black hats and spammers who runied our trust in companies and advertisers. We now fear of giving advertisers control on our information because we don't kow how they are going to use it. - Shahar Nechmad via Alert Thingy
The question is - am I willing to have my personal data tracked to get "better" ads? In my case, no. That's a pretty weak benefit for the loss of privacy. - Jason Kaneshiro
If FriendFeed ever allowed advertisers to track user interaction and use behavioral targeted ads on FF I think the majority of ads would be for FriendFeed schwag ;) - Aviv
Jason, what about things like Amazon's recommended lists, or "shoppers like you also bought?" Those seem to be gold for increasing purchases. I'm not convinced that even the people who say they don't want their privacy invaded no matter the ad don't in fact benefit and even enjoy certain types of highly targeted advertising. - Mark Trapp
Behavioral targeted advertising in theory would be more tolerable, but even if I see an ad that is relevant to my "pattern of behavior", I wouldn't click on it. I doubt I'm the norm, but internet ads just don't work on me. Maybe it's a mental block. Also, it kind of creeps me out that an advertising system knows my browsing behavior. Big slippery slope there. - Bwana McCall
One problem I see is that privacy itself becomes a product in the marketplace, and consumers have to pay money or do other things to possess it. Advertisers are encouraged to increase the price of privacy for consumers because it has no value to them, but advertising does. Capitalists would charge for air and water if they could, and so there needs to be limits placed on what is acceptable. - Chris White
I think it might be cool if Friendfeed had a corpus of advertising friendfeed accounts, and as you use friendfeed, let's say every 50 or so feed entries an advertiser feed entry gets injected into your stream (in much the same way friend of friend entries do) linking to something, based on your friendfeed usage, you might enjoy. Based off of that, people can comment and like the entry just like any other friendfeed entry. - Mark Trapp
Fyi...the bigger ad networks can execute some basic behavioral targeting simply by leveraging your recent web surfing data from cookies. They also use your geo data in conjunction with that info for better targeting as well. So it's passive and behind the scenes. - Mark Krynsky
Mark : Wouldn't that mean we would all need to get paid? - Paul
It depends on the situation. I click on things Amazon suggests to me all the time, and I've let them track my buying behavior since what? 1996? - Cyndy
Indeed Mark, and either they're awful at it, or it's more cost effective to not worry about targeted advertising. I can't remember the last time I've been to a site that had some semblance of targeting (with the exception of AdSense). - Mark Trapp
@Mark - I actually find the recommendations on Amazon and Netflix pretty laugahble, the algorithms are so transparent I ignore them (as in, I buy one book by xxx author and it recommends the other books that author has written, as if I wouldn't have thought of that?). "Shoppers like you" works much better; I notice the Netflix recommendations from friends are pretty good, but that's a different thing entirely - that's product endorsements from peers, not advertsing coming from a company or PR firm. - Jason Kaneshiro
I like the direction just makes more sense to have a way to get paid for the ads!! - Paul
As in: ads are generally, here's a product you might like, please check it out - wheras reviews and endorsements can be positive or negative, you should definitely NOT buy this product. I find the latter extremely valuable and we'd never get that from targeted ads. - Jason Kaneshiro
Just out of curiosity-who are the 3 or 4 people that click on all those Google Ads? I haven't met any yet. When they reveal themselves they'll take on superhero status as legends of the Net. - Mark Forman
good discussion - I accept loss of privacy and targeted marketing as a reality - whether I am aware of it such as in the grocery store reward card programs - or the behind the scenes stuff Mark K referenced. - Ruth Ferguson
Jason, any ad agency worth their salt would be using peer recommendations as the basis for their targeting algorithms, but assuming it was completely peer-driven, I could see how one could monetize off of that. The problem is, it'd have to be more universal: you couldn't have short run or single product ad campaigns guaranteeing a specific number of conversions; you'd be at the whim of the people. I doubt advertisers would go for something that up-in-the-air. - Mark Trapp
If I must be served advertising, I would absolutely prefer it be targeted. Even if I never click it. Behavioral would be second to opted but imagine for a second, FF only served you ads based on the rooms you are subscribed. - Andrew Smith
It seems like FriendFeeders are constantly looking for new stuff to click on and explore, and so I wouldn't be surprised if they actually complain that not enough ads are being exposed in their FF flow! I think FF users will be very likely to click on ads and actually engage in a discussion, post reviews, related links, etc. - Aviv
I think advertising serves a valuable function. It would be great to live in a world where all you have to do is create something and customers automatically come rushing to your door. We all know that's not how it is, so advertising helps get the word out...In answer to Louis' question, I much prefer targeted ads to irrelevent ads. However, since personal information is going to used, I need to be aware of it, and agree to its transfer. If that's the deal (and it's voluntary) I see no problem. - Chris Rossini
@Andrew On the other hand, having badly targeted ads is a great benefit to me as a consumer, because they're so much easier to ignore :) - Jason Kaneshiro
I agree with Jill, I tend to do the searching when I want to buy something; however, I understand that ads fund many sites so from that point of view I suppose relevance is better than randomness. - Joel Gray
I HATE online ADS . period. They suck big time. Those dancing wackos really piss me off. enough already... augh! - Susan Beebe
Are you familiar with the "uncanny valley" concept? I think a similar valley exists in targeted advertising. On the one end the targeting is poor; then it ramps up a bit where it's basically just telling you to be a repeat customer (click "I already OWN this, stupid!" - e.g. "Minority Report"), and then the curve drops into HORROR territory when it seems like an invasion of privacy. ("WTF? How did Google know I needed more toilet paper?") So no, not much of a Good Thing. - Karim
At some point way in the future, the curve slopes up again and climbs out of the uncanny valley. At that point you are *depending* on the advertising to run your life, to remind you what to buy and when to buy it, etc. and you can't imagine going back to the days when you had to make shopping lists. But we're a ways off from that :-) - Karim
there has yet to be an ad, targeted or not, that i've wanted to see- at all. - Chris Hollander
I cant even name the last banner ad I remember seeing I mean i know they are there, but my brain just filters them as noise. - Geoff Schultz
Here's a curious thing. We all know nobody has ever, EVER clicked on a banner ad. Never, ever ever. Yet, when my company's brands apply behavioral targeting, our clickthrough rate always, ALWAYS jumps. It must be ghosts in the machine. - Tom Cunniff
The problem is that just because an ad shows exactly what you want, such as a digital camera, you don't know if the product is good. That is why it is better to do research on your own. - possible248
I would rather see no ads, actually. But that's what Adblock Plus is for. :D - Voyagerfan5761
Without the ads, you wouldn't know there is a product to go research. The ads are important, but they rarely generate a direct sale, at least among smart shoppers. If I'm going to be forced to see an ad, I'd at least like it to be relevant to me. I'd also like it to stay in its little box, stay quiet, and not try to install something. - xero
I think what most people who write about this subject don't realize is that the majority of people who are targeted by these behavioral ads aren't advertisers/marketers/social media gurus.
They just use the Web like anything else in their daily lives and they usually don't even realize the 'creepiness' to begin with.
Know what I mean?
Also, don't confuse creepy targeting with just plain, old bad marketing ideas:
http://blog.timberlineinteract... - Ryan Hupfer
