Targeted advertising?
 

Why are advertisers willing to pay for so-called "targeted advertising?" When I turn off my ad blockers most of the ads I see are not of interest to me, and in many cases they are irrelevant. For example, I just went to a news site I frequent and the banner across the top of the page was for Jimmy Johns restaurants--there isn't one within hours of here and I don't recall ever seeing one. On another site I see more than one ad for Ram trucks. Again, I am not in the market for a Ram truck, I have never owned a truck, and if for some reason I needed one I would never buy a Chrysler product. On most sites I also see tons of garbage--clickbait sponsored posts that I would never click on in a million years!

And this system is what makes the Internet work?

I find if I look at something eg. on amazon, ebay etc. that I get banner adverts for what I've been looking at on other sites. By then though I've finished looking and these persist. I also get adverts for what other people in the house may have been looking at on a different computer.

I don't believe that targeted advertising sells anything but targeted advertising itself appears to be a good seller.

Clickbait ads never seem to be targeted. If everyone ignored them they'd go away.

Google ads are usually related to what I search for or open from Discover. I've never figured out why I get ads for large women's clothing though!

Amazon ads likewise are related to pages I view on Amazon.

Other ads are from the province I reside in. Your IP address is used.

And now apparently they are dreaming up new ways to use your email address to track your activity: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/0...you-everywhere

Mind that this just my supposition, but I believe if any kind of ad/cookie blockers are used for a while (days, months, years?) and then suddenly 'turned off', you are now in their scope but not yet a target..

- Bruce

I agree that supposedly the longer you allow the cookies etc. the better the targeting, but I have done this for months/years at times both ways--cookies on and cookies off, for the most part. I have several different computers. I really can't detect that the ads are better targeted one way or the other. The thing I do notice is that some websites are almost unusable if you don't use something like uBlock Origin to make web browsing less chaotic. I think ad targeting is a scam that advertisers are buying into.

I hate spam ads!!

But wouldn't you maybe be more uneasy if it was accurately targeting you?

No, because I block most ads using ad blockers, and I just ignore most of the rest. If it's an ad I'm interested in, so much the better. I'd rather see a useful ad than one I am not interested in. But, I just don't buy stuff very often based on an ad. I don't go "shopping." If I buy something it is based on research and a decision process.

Welcome to EMD :)

Excellent :)

Any kind of advertising in my opinion is intrusive and unwanted!!

I do not ever respond to spam ads!!

Welcome to EMD :)

bambisagucio at DuckDuckGo :(

I just know when I see those types of post, that Bruce is referring to, that it's a prelude to spam. The pattern is to post, then return some time later and add the spam links.

I reported the bambisagucio post to the mods yesterday, as being a pointless post, it brings nothing to the discussion, and was most probably a spammer.

At the same time, I also reported this post as having spam links added - at time of writing, it's still there.

Dont ya like how they try to make it hard to see??

Spamming morons........