Author Topic: Tone-deaf banner ads  (Read 12034 times)

grantmeaname

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Tone-deaf banner ads
« on: July 23, 2012, 08:46:11 AM »
I just got an ad for a 2012 Aston Martin V8 Vantage at the bottom of an MMM page ("Closer than you think"; "Starting at $118,635). I do like cars (like MMM: they're way cool, but a $100,000 car is totally unconscionable to me), and this is a forum with people who invest, so I can see how a primitive algorithm would think I'd be a good person to show the ad to.

But c'mon! I make less than minimum wage!

Runner-up: Penny stock trading.

Daley

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2012, 09:37:18 AM »
Look on the bright side, MMM is getting targeted ad revenue for an advertisement that the ad companies swear is relevant to your interests. He gets money to keep the servers greased and you get a laugh about how grossly inaccurate the advertising psych profile is on us all.

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2012, 09:44:42 AM »
Definitely! I'm not disgruntled or threatening to vote with my feet and move my valuable consumer eyeballs elsewhere. It's just so far from an accurate guess of the kind of ad I'd want to see.

MMM

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2012, 09:57:59 AM »
Agreed! I wish I could control the ads. Google AdWords has a way to individually pre-approve the ads that will run in advance, but it's apparently labor intensive, and I don't need more things to take me away from actually writing stuff.

In the long run, I'll let you know my secret ad strategy for this blog. No adsense or credit cards or anything else. Just three squares on the right sidebar or footer, for cool things like a solar panel company, or the Nissan Leaf, or high-tech company job postings, or a discount computer equipment store like Newegg, etc.

 These would each rent for $1000/month and be longer-term rentals so they don't change often. That's more than enough to pay for the best server, a few hours a month of developer time for advanced Wordpress work, a slush fund for some bigger MMM laboratory science experiments and occasional travel for stories, and even pay me a reasonable amount for the hours I spend working on it. And yet it would be less than a tenth of what a blog of this readership usually earns, which would be a nice statement about "take what you need, then focus on something else besides making more money after that".

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2012, 11:15:07 AM »
That's a fantastic idea! So they would be in the vein of the nashbar ad that runs on the main page now?

Jamesqf

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2012, 11:58:06 AM »
And if I were going to pay that much for a car, it'd be a Tesla :-)

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2012, 12:11:37 PM »
If I were going to pay that much for a car, it would be an early-2000s domestic sedan and seven years of living expenses.

Gerard

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2012, 04:38:16 PM »
If I were going to pay that much for a car, it would be an early-2000s domestic sedan and seven years of living expenses.
You could have a bumper sticker that reads "My other car is A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!"

MMM

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #8 on: July 23, 2012, 08:07:50 PM »
Very nice - or to confuse people more, "My Other Car is a Giant Mustache".

Will

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #9 on: July 23, 2012, 09:45:00 PM »
I just KNEW there had to be something out there, and there is.  Here you go:  mustache merchandise!!

http://www.mustacheattack.com/

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2012, 06:39:02 AM »
Very nice - or to confuse people more, "My Other Car is a Giant Mustache".
I like it. Duly stolen.

velocistar237

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2012, 06:55:24 AM »
I was thinking it would be fun to have a thread for come-backs. Like when someone laughs at you while you're riding your bike. Not that I myself would ever use them.

Stuff like, "Can't hear you over the roaring sound of my financial freedom." But better, you know.

igthebold

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #12 on: July 25, 2012, 11:47:10 AM »
I keep waiting for an opportunity to use this picture but I think I'm just going to have to awkwardly insert it here.

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #13 on: July 25, 2012, 01:51:46 PM »
Firefox with ad-block plus, NoScript and ghostery.....what ads?

4_shore

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2012, 03:14:14 PM »
I keep waiting for an opportunity to use this picture but I think I'm just going to have to awkwardly insert it here.

Awkwardly inserted and WINNING

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #15 on: December 01, 2012, 07:51:46 PM »
I'm getting tons of Vanguard ads these days.

Looks like AdChoices finally figured its shit out.

PJ

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #16 on: December 01, 2012, 08:44:04 PM »
Thanks for bumping this thread, grantmeaname - gave me a few giggles and I needed 'em today!

Nords

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #17 on: December 02, 2012, 09:26:03 AM »
I'm getting tons of Vanguard ads these days.
Looks like AdChoices finally figured its shit out.
I'd like to ask a question without implying criticism.  I'm not suggesting that you do anything, but I'm curious about the economics of the whole online advertising industry.

Why are you seeing ads in the first place?  Even though I'm a blogger with my own AdSense account, I use an adblocker and I don't see my own ads-- let alone someone else's.  Frankly I'm mystified by why anyone would have to even look at the things.  Yet judging from my blog's 300-400 daily hits and $125/month AdSense income, a ridiculously large number of people want to see ads. 

I'm not suggesting that you should install an ad blocker, and I'm fine with reading threads about tone-deaf advertising.  But I don't understand why anyone would look at browser ads (let alone click on them), anymore than I understand why someone with a DVR would watch a TV commercial.

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #18 on: December 02, 2012, 09:57:35 AM »
I believe that blocking browser ads is depriving website operators of their income. It's decreasing both the watch rate and the click rate. MMM is providing a phenomenal service and community, so it's something I've chosen not to do.

The difference between this and DVR ad skipping (though I don't have cable or a DVR) is that I couldn't give two shits about media conglomerates, but my biggest website consumption choices by time spent are small businesses operated by individuals I care about personally.

Jamesqf

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #19 on: December 02, 2012, 11:00:07 AM »
[But I don't understand why anyone would look at browser ads (let alone click on them), anymore than I understand why someone with a DVR would watch a TV commercial.

They're a window into the world.  I don't own a TV myself (never have, 'cause I have very limited tolerance for sitting & watching stuff), so I only see TV when visiting friends.  Honestly, I find the commercials much more interesting than the programs.  Especially the drug ones, where the long list of side effects of drug-for-minor-problem include increased risk of heart attack, stroke, or sudden death.

Likewise on-line, the only ads that really bug me are the pop-ups, or the ones that try to play video.  Otherwise they're no worse (sometimes better) than the sites which try to impose things like patterned wallpaper on you.

Nords

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #20 on: December 03, 2012, 11:22:29 AM »
I believe that blocking browser ads is depriving website operators of their income. It's decreasing both the watch rate and the click rate.
Thanks.

I don't know how an advertiser would learn that a browser is using an ad blocker.  I agree that the click rate goes to zero if the reader doesn't see the ad, but I don't know if the advertiser can tell that a browser doesn't see the ad.

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #21 on: December 03, 2012, 11:42:55 AM »
I don't know how an advertiser would learn that a browser is using an ad blocker.
I don't know if it's even trackable. I just know that if it is, I wouldn't want to decrease the effectiveness. It's not like I'll be spending more by not blocking ads, anyway.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #22 on: December 03, 2012, 02:42:32 PM »
I don't know how an advertiser would learn that a browser is using an ad blocker.
I don't know if it's even trackable. I just know that if it is, I wouldn't want to decrease the effectiveness. It's not like I'll be spending more by not blocking ads, anyway.
It's possible, there is a cool explanation down the following page:

http://tutorialzine.com/2011/12/how-to-block-adblock/

Some websites will use a background image with something telling you how much you hurt them, waah waah waah, which is effectively only seen with an ad blocker enabled. I have yet to encounter a single website flat out refusing to serve content, though.

Daley

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #23 on: December 03, 2012, 03:08:40 PM »
I have yet to encounter a single website flat out refusing to serve content, though.

That particular annoying indignity is reserved for those of us who understand the risk of running Javascript wide open on the greater internet and employ tools like NoScript while surfing. Heaven forbid if your website can't render two paragraphs of text without pushing it through 500k of jQuery libraries first.

It's quite easy to track ad-blocking percentages, though... you just have to compare access logs for the ad content against the logs for the site content.

Personally, I don't have a problem with advertisements themselves... my problem lies in the privacy policies that the biggest advertisers use, which is also the same reason why I don't do social networking. I'll support people's sites in an opt-in manner, but not as a general rule and not at the cost of global privacy.

grantmeaname

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #24 on: December 03, 2012, 03:30:27 PM »
I'll support people's sites in an opt-in manner, but not as a general rule and not at the cost of global privacy.
That's how I use flashblock, but that's about being economical with my elderly laptop's cpu cycles in linux more than privacy concerns.

Jamesqf

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #25 on: December 03, 2012, 08:19:16 PM »
I'll support people's sites in an opt-in manner, but not as a general rule and not at the cost of global privacy.

How do ads violate anyone's privacy? 

Jamesqf

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #26 on: December 04, 2012, 11:49:10 AM »
I'm thinking targeted ads. Especially from websites like Facebook, that track you all around the web.

I still can't see some webbot as a real invasion of privacy, since even the best targeted ads don't (and almost certainly can't) really collect anything personal*.  Now if my (hypothetical) stalking ex can access that info, yes.  But there are all sorts of public & government databases that are a lot easier to access, and contain far more private information.  Besides, if you've got a Facebook page, you've already given away any expectation of privacy, haven't you?

*For example, another post mentioned Jimi Hendrix, so I went to Wikipedia to look him up.  Your putative privacy-invading adbot would conclude from this that I'm into '60s rock music and start popping up related ads, even though in reality I care for very little music written after the early 1800s.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2012, 11:57:58 AM by Jamesqf »

Daley

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #27 on: December 05, 2012, 08:44:33 AM »
I'll support people's sites in an opt-in manner, but not as a general rule and not at the cost of global privacy.

How do ads violate anyone's privacy?

I'm thinking targeted ads. Especially from websites like Facebook, that track you all around the web.

Pretty much this. I don't feel like my life is enriched having advertisers know every last bit of my online habits for their marketing purposes. It's a privacy colonoscopy. You want to make money off my online browsing habits and have me go along with it? Cut me in on the ad revenue you get building a psych profile on me that you sell to other advertisers.

Honestly though, it's just yet another database that when combined with other databases can just be a bit too much if put in the wrong hands, and I know enough about data security to know that there's very little data security in the real world. If corporations want to build a profile on me to make money? They're going to have to work for it.

You'll note, I don't do Facebook either.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 08:49:38 AM by I.P. Daley »

Jamesqf

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Re: Tone-deaf banner ads
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2012, 12:08:53 PM »
Pretty much this. I don't feel like my life is enriched having advertisers know every last bit of my online habits for their marketing purposes. It's a privacy colonoscopy.

I can't see it.  The point is that there is no "they" in the picture.  It's all a bunch of unthinking machines, not one of which (or their owners) has the slightest interest in me as a person.  It's really no different than all the junk mail that I get addressed to "boxholder".

What does bug the crap out of me are the web sites that ask for things I consider to be highly personal information, like my date of birth, and make it accessible to anyone.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 12:11:19 PM by Jamesqf »