Content-Driven Web Ads
LOOSE wire quotes Microsoft's and Yahoo's answer to questions about their use of email content to deliver "targetted" advertising. My thought of the day is this: google is big. Microsoft is big. The various content-oriented ad companies seem to be pretty capable.
Why doesn't google allow me to set ad preferences? I am fifty times more likely to click an ad for, say, a computer component, than I am for Sean Hannity's latest campfire-starter. Why doesn't the google toolbar, in particular, do this? (By the way, if you use IE, you need the google toolbar; perfect popup blocking).
I have no problems with ads being on the sites I visit. The reason their click through rates are so low is that they keep showing me stupid ads for crap I am not interested in . Sometime in the year 2029 this is going to sink in for these idiots.
So how do we fix this? Simple. Every PC in the universe, practically, has Flash on it. So let's start there, as a tech base. "Generic" advertisers (those who are paid by others to show ads on their site, who do not direct content), simply insert a link to a little Flash code, wherever they want an ad. That Flash code can connect to a server and pull in generic ads, or do content-driven advertising. So far so good. The bottom of that little Flash ad can contain "Interested" and "Not Interested" buttons, which can be used to influence further ad delivery. It can also link to a more complex UI (possibly manifested right inline), that allows more precise selection of general topic areas.
None of this particularly requires Flash, of course, but it can be made very unobtrusive by using it (as in, no web page alterations). None of this is particularly original, either. I am just completely mystified as to why a user's basic interests are not taken into account, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that it's been poor usability and functionality that has prevented it from really taking off.
Imagine how much more effective advertising would be if it operated the same way that Amazon's ratings do. You can click on "I already own it", or "not interested", and have a much higher chance of seeing something that you ARE interested in...
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Ross,
Ross,
Before you tackle this problem, how about doing some ATM work? Why does the ATM network know my PIN when it sees it, but doesn't know I want to see English on the screen, and asks me every time?
It has to ask you for your
It has to ask you for your PIN in a language that you understand. ;)
But...it should definitely auto-switch. Although some days I can understand Spanish, and other days I can't.
Hi, all!
Hi, all!
Newbie on tap here. Been reading you guys for a while, silent as a mouse, but I couldn't resist this one.
You've got a fundamental problem as a web advertiser that you have no easy way to associate the preference information you collect with a particular user. You can't do it with passive measures, since a particular user's footprint may change from one log on to another. If you want to take more active measures, you've got a problem with user acceptance.
Would you really want to let any advertizing company you happen to run across on the net install software on your system that announced your identity to god-knows-how-many-firms every time you log on? And would you really want *all* your "interests" recorded on remote servers, tailoring the ads you will see no matter where you log on from? To put it in another light, would you like the advertizing choices you make while surfing at home to affect the kinds of ads you see while using the Internet at work?
I'm not so sure most people realize what kind of information mining "directed advertizing" entails, and I'm not so sure they'd think it was a good idea if they did. I have to wonder if this isn't more closely tied to the reasons we haven't seen this kind of thing yet, as opposed to the technical issues. You can't dupe all of the people, all of the time.
There IS a way to get rid of
There IS a way to get rid of many of the ads if you're using Windows. First, get a good popup blocker (yes, you knew that). Next, amend your hosts file to direct the ad servers to your own computer. Since the URLs won't be found you get a "page not found" error ... which in the small space for a web ad usually appears as white space. Niiiice.
Details can be found elsewhere but a rough outline follows below. Let some other guy give you a current list of adservers ... 30 or so deliver most of ads you are forced to see anyway.
Edit the "hosts" file. It is located somewhere like:
c:[windows]system32driversetc
And amend it like so with the list of adservers you get elsewhere:
127.0.0.1 adserver.company.com
Being a computer d00d, I kind
Being a computer d00d, I kind of already have popup blockers, and I've already edited my hosts file, as appropriate. In fact, mine contains several thousand entries, conveniently placed there by Spybot Search and Destroy.
The thing is, I don't really _mind_ seeing ads, inline with the content. That's fine with me. I just want them to be vaguely relevant to my life, in some way.
I get a little hazy on what a web page is and is not allowed to do, with respect to security. Cookies are legitimate, in a lot of cases. I don't want ALL of my interests recorded, but if I can _select_ a few things, and the cookie contains just a little of that, then that's fine with me. It's low bandwidth, and the advertisers are showing me stuff I've indicated I'm interested in.
Google serves up their content-based ads from centralized servers...likewise this kind of "directed advertising" comes from a central server as well. Google keeps a couple of search preferences in a cookie on my system. Why can't it keep a couple of advertising preferences too? Or, in the cookie, keep a handle to a more complex profile of likes/dislikes, then serve content based on that?
R- Why don't you actually
R- Why don't you actually email Google and complain? Have you thought of that? Try it. It might actually work... even better... Make it our first Ministry of Perfidy conspiracy... Hey you!!! Out there!! Yes! YOU! email google with this fantabulous idea and let's see if they build in in the next two years.
Amphioxus, welcome aboard.
Amphioxus, welcome aboard. You are now entered in our sweepstakes. Grand prize is a fabulous totebag. The drawing will be held in October of 2010. Unclaimed prizes become the property of Mrs. Buckethead, or my son Sir John-the-so-far-lacking-in-material-possesions.
I think that some of what you say is difficult is actually starting to happen, at least on a small scale. Blogads, which we have begun to see here and there, are certainly targeted to very small niches. You don't necessarily have to have some sort of spyware creating a marketing profile, you just need advertisers who are sufficiently interested in clever small scale marketing to place their ads where they might do the most good.
We likely won't see that from the big mega advertisers like GM, GE, Sony, Microsoft and the like, but as people's experience with and knowledge of the possibilities of the wondrous and fantabulous interweb expand, smaller companies and individuals will do this as a way of maximizing limited marketing budgets, and we may very well see marketing firms devoted to placing small ads in small places.
I posted something on this
I posted something on this topic on my blog a few weeks ago - read it [url=http://sloat.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_sloat_archive.html#108259947178709…]. Long story short, what you're looking for is something closer to Penny">http://www.penny-arcade.com]Penny Arcade, who get unholy clickthrough rates because they post ads that their readers want to look at.
However, Google doing it is harder - Amphioxus made good points. Anything you already need an ID to use though should be good for this. There's a hell of a lot of ad-heavy sites with logons, and they should all really be using it.