Why is targeted internet advertising so horrifically inaccurate?
I tried an experiment this week. On Chrome, I used my normal array of ad blockers, un-trackers, and similar protective measures.
On Firefox, I used no ad blocking or anything else – everything was allowed.
And I tried to use Chrome and Firefox pretty much 50–50.
What I found is that the internet-based targeted advertising truly sucks. If I were an advertiser, I would royally angry that my good money is being so badly spent.
Among the badly delivered advertisements:
- ads to become an Avon sales drone (I’m male and don’t use cosmetics)
- at least a dozen ads in Spanish (I’m an english speaker and don’t know more than a dozen words in Spanish)
- Ads for diapers (I have grandchildren, not children, and some of the diaper ads were in Spanish)
- two ads for banks in New Mexico (I live in Georgia)
Why are these so-called targeted ads so inaccurate?
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6 Answers
Well Google is supposed to be based on self catered advertisements and search suggestions based on your internet activity. Personally I have noticed that I have seen many products advertised that I have actually looked at on eBay and Amazon.
You may need to sign into Google on your Chrome browser’s settings in order to increase its accuracy.
From personal experience, I have never noticed any advertisements in any other language than English; nor have I ever seen internet ads with baby products. The only exception to this are the video ads in the YouTube videos, which are not individually tailored.
On the Google News feed, my weather report is “Weather for Voorheesville, New York” and I live as centrally in the US as you can physically get.
I can only guess.
Either I’m too small of a fish (money transaction wise) for them to bother zeroing in on
or
The vaunted “internet information collection system” is build on smoke and mirrors and isn’t really targeting people any more specifically than TV advertising.
Selling ads for products related to the sites you choose to visit isn’t exactly…well…new, much less revolutionary.
@elbanditoroso Browsers I use are firefox and safari. I avoid anything google. It is too intrusive IMHO. Blockers I use are Ghostery, Lightbeam and Disconnect me. I do not get those silly ads. And for what it’s worth this is the only “social” site I use. Period.
@si3tech – fascinating, but not really responding to my question.
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