
How Do People Feel About Retargeting? - jaybol
http://blog.buysellads.com/2011/02/how-do-people-feel-about-retargeting/
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jarin
One thing I haven't seen mentioned about retargeting is that it can also keep
potential customers from seeing competitors' ads for a few days after visiting
your site.

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nihaar
Not quite keep customers from seeing ANY competitor ads. The amount of
inventory that retargeting networks can bid on or buy from is limited so not
all ad spaces that a potential customer sees are available to bid on. Also
doesn't make sense for most networks to do so if they are getting paid on a
CPC or CPA basis and buying on a CPM (as most do).

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jasonlynes
in theory i don't have a problem with these minority report scenarios. i do
think at some point advertisers need to stop thinking with their proverbial
dicks and start thinking about dinner and chocolates. there's a reason i
didn't get that leather jacket, just like there's a reason you're not getting
laid on the first date. continuing to ask me won't help.

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sskates
"Fetchback, a retargeting ad platform claims that 2010 Valentines Day
advertisers received a 600% or higher return on investment. They also claim
that, in general, retargeting can perform 74% better than a standard pay-per-
click campaign."

Seems like it works better. I agree that the probability of you buying a
jacket given that you visited the website and didn't buy is lower than the
probability of you buying a jacket given that you visited the website (sorry
that's a mouthful). But the probability of you buying the jacket given that
you visited the website and didn't buy is higher than the probability of you
buying the jacket given that you didn't visit the website.

TL;DR: P(buying|visited the website and didn't buy) > P(buying)

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jasonlynes
haha, yes, agreed. no doubt the % return is higher than pitching me a product
i've never seen.

my point is more along the lines of, i'd like to see ads serve me a little
better rather than serve the advertiser. the priorities are advertiser > site
> buyer. should be opposite.

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rhizome
I think most if not all of the time they are serving you the best possible ad
they can come up with.

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silverbax88
I don't really care about retargeting in the current sense, but I would advise
BuySellAds to PLEASE proofread what you post. Many typographical errors to be
found on that page.

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slig
Also, what's the deal with that stock images that doesn't add anything but
noise?

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kruegerb
I have done some fairly extensive work building out a retargeting platform for
the BI Engineering department that I currently work in. At times, it feels
very sleazy to be tracking the user behavior without their knowledge in order
to show them Ads which they are more likely to click.

I think the main question is, does the retargeting deliver any value to the
user besides subliminally convincing them to go back to whence they came. I
think it is possible to improve a user's experience with retargeting,
especially if content is involved. Sometimes people get fixated on Advertising
when discussing the concept of retargeting, but it is a concept that can be
leveraged in many different ways.

For instance, if a given site knows that a user has been visiting the
manufacturer websites for different types of laptops in the recent past, I
believe it improves the user experience to personalize the content on your
site automatically with articles on the best laptop manufacturers, the top 10
laptops on the market right now, etc. This can be done through the same
retargeting that is used to decide which Ad to show to a user.

In the case of advertising, if a user is being retargeted, I also believe that
it is helpful to that user if the Ad they are shown involves some type of
discount or special offer. Yes, the end goal is to incentivize the user even
further to move from the consideration phase to the purchasing phase by
clicking on the Ad, but at least they will be saving some money when
purchasing something they most likely were planning on purchasing at some
point in time anyways.

In general, I think the question is around the added value to the user. If
seeing a relevant Ad, possibly with an additional discount or coupon, helps
the user make a decision, I don't see any problem with that.

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sskates
A lot of the outcry reminds me of when Gmail first announced that they would
serve ads based on the content of your e-mail. A lot of people freaked out at
first but these days few care.

Once people understand what's going on I don't think it will be a big deal.
The technology has always been there, it's just recently it's been widely
adopted enough to be noticeable.

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saturnine
One of the disadvantages of traditional ad media is the lack of a negative
feedback mechanism to the advertiser from the consumer. This wastes advertiser
money and consumer time and goodwill. But with the web, there's no excuse not
to have this.

In a recent example, Yahoo News has been displaying an ad for Allstate
Insurance containing lots of motion. Once or twice, fine. But after dozens of
times, it's sufficiently far into the realm of irritating that I'm writing
this comment. I should be able to right-click on the ad and indicate I never
want to see it again. Presumably that's something the advertiser would want to
know, and I want to tell them.

I don't use ad blockers. I'd rather not and I shouldn't have to. Web
marketers, please fix this.

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r00fus
Interactive Advertising? The problem is, people generally don't want ads, so
you're looking at a largely negative feedback base.

How do you sort the signal from the noise?

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mcarlin
The signal is weak but extremely detectable.

It's exactly like the signal for a positive response; in general, click
through rates for various things are around one or two tenths of a percent. If
Ad A is getting a tenth of a percent and Ad B is getting two tenths of a
percent, Ad B is clearly way better.

If 99.5% of people give negative feedback for Ad A, and 99.8% of people give
negative feedback for Ad B, then Ad A is clearly way better.

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dkarl
It's funny that while I was reading about users feeling "stalked," the social
media box on the left was creepily following me up and down the page as I
scrolled.

