
Amazon to Launch Mobile Ads, in a Threat to Google and Facebook - jmsflknr
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-21/amazon-said-to-launch-mobile-ads-in-threat-to-google-facebook
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millstone
Bezos famously says Amazon's "secret sauce" is "obsessive compulsive focus on
the customer." Isn't this move at odds with that focus? Customers don't want
to see ads.

~~~
chrischen
In theory customers do want to see ads, if the ads are working.

~~~
n42
this is just not true, and only describes a very specific subset of
advertisement. for a very large portion of ads, the advertisers want people to
see it even if it doesn't translate to a direct sale of something the user
already wanted.

Disney does not expect someone to see an ad for Disney World and immediately
win a click-through conversion for a $2k vacation. They do expect to remain
relevant, and the ads have "worked" when Disney pops into mind when I try to
plan my next vacation. So they make sure to continue to advertise to families.

I do not want to see those ads.

~~~
bduerst
You're conflating direct response with awareness marketing, which are both
valid. It is a concept of information theory for imperfect markets.

In a perfect market, the consumer and seller know everything about each other
and every other product and service that they could conceivably ever want.

Since we live with imperfect markets, consumers do not have all the
information about everything on the market. Sellers will pay money to
communicate to consumers about their brand, product, service, etc. A
percentage of consumers will be aware of this seller the next time they
research or consider making a purchase decision.

The perfect ad is only shown the consumers that it is relevant to.
Search/display ads are still not perfect, but they're closer to this than
previous mediums of communication.

~~~
n42
you're missing my point.

many ads "work", and even in a perfect world where I only see the ads that
"work" for me, that doesn't mean I want to see them.

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jak92
I am using Amazon less and less these days, buying elsewhere if given a
reasonable choice.

I do not want my buying habits mined , bought and sold, etc. They are my
property and not subject to the whimms of amazon or any other company.

just let me make a purchase and let that be it. at least other retailers give
you the option of using a 'loyalty' card if you want to be tracked.

~~~
52-6F-62
Don't any regular credit cards do this already? (not that I appreciate it)

~~~
jak92
It's difficult to buy online without a card...

Why no try to limit the universe of data collection by being selective with
sites purchasing from.

~~~
52-6F-62
It's been happening for probably over a generation with cards now.

I'd say any change you'd make is like farting in the wind at this point.

Of course, that's entirely your call to make.

There are other data mining processes I personally find much more nefarious.

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aszantu
Does anyone else feel disgust towards the world we live in? Everywhere you
look, you get adds thrown in your face. Facebook is marketing to your profile,
not just paid adds but people with their business. You meet a new person in a
café they tell you about their business and try to sell stuff... You dare to
go online with your smartphone and there's a million apps updating and when
you open them they throw more adds in your face. can I demand my attention
back please?

~~~
megaman821
If ads are the biggest problem you face in the world, you have had a pretty
easy life. I wish people had half as much passion as they do against ads,
against more impactful things like hunger, disease and war.

Also, ads really don't bother me that much. Perhaps, I can afford to pay for
everything I consume without ads, but some people don't have the means to. I
am glad that ads allow some people to access content freely or provide them
cheaper goods. There are actually times ads have helped me find a product I
enjoy, I assume for most normal people this is true also.

What I find more annoying than ads, is all the self-righteous complaining
about ads.

~~~
justaguyhere
_What I find more annoying than ads, is all the self-righteous complaining
about ads._

Don't those mega billboards annoy you? Don't the auto playing audio/video ads
annoy you? You get on the subway, there are ads (and you've paid for the
ticket, it is not even you are traveling free). You drive on the street, there
are huge billboards everywhere. You switch on the TV, there are ads. You open
a bank account, the bank sells your address and the very next week you get
junk in the mail. How many of these are voluntary?

How is it self-righteous to expect a quiet, clutter free life/atmosphere?
Almost all ads are ugly, annoying and they are full of lies.

 _There are actually times ads have helped me find a product I enjoy_

How often is this true? Maybe one ad in a thousand is useful, it isn't worth
watching the other 999 junk

~~~
crazygringo
So... I used to hate ads, and especially (real-life) billboards. I was
convinced a world without public advertising would be better.

Then I spent a long weekend in São Paulo (Brazil), a mega-city which had
banned all outdoor advertising a couple of years prior.

It was... a profoundly boring urban environment. Until then, I'd never
imagined just how much advertising adds color, faces, humanity, and dynamism
to a city.

I dunno. I still feel like I dislike ads in principle... but then in practice
the world feels empty without them. Think of when you open a magazine from 80
years ago, the ads can be the most interesting part. They're part of our
cultural fabric.

I still don't what to think, but I know it's more complicated than "ads are
bad".

~~~
darkerside
This just blew my mind a bit. It made me think of how corporations are like
giant organisms, and their ads are like mating calls that drive their thriving
and reproduction.

~~~
FridgeSeal
Don't mistake advertising for culture.

You can have vibrant, colourful environments without advertising.

~~~
darkerside
Is advertising not an enormous part of modern culture? It's certainly not the
only kind, but it's where we've allocated tons of resources to provoke and
stimulate.

~~~
FridgeSeal
Advertisers is a parasite on culture in that it can be a part of it, but for
the most part it leeches and re-appropriates culture for its own ends.

Advertising would very much like you to think it’s a big part of modern
culture, because that would be vindicating and validating it’s existence.

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ineedasername
I don't see how this is a threat to Google or Facebook. Amazon isn't
encroaching in their ad spaces. They're just placing ads in their own site.
(And they already do some of this)

Regardless, I think it's a bad move. If there's one thing I'd dislike more
than having to scroll though a few pages of miscategorized items, it's having
to go through more ads to do it.

~~~
taurath
The data they collect on users is the threat to google or Facebook. That means
they can have better targeting and start their own ad network.

If commerce based data is better than search or “like” based data (which it
should be) then they can offer a more cost effective platform. This is a
direct shot across the bow.

~~~
zjaffee
Product advertising isn't necessarily better than search or social
advertising, it's just different. It's unlikely that amazon will be
competitive with FB on political advertising, advertising for events, local
advertising, ect.

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mc32
I wonder if in addition to mainly physical products and entertainment
subscriptions, Amazon could serve up ads for any product outside their
control.

They already do “sponsored”. But what if they index just about anything people
buy? Insurance, Cars, Dell, Dropbox, etc., and undercut the clutter (non
commerce results in SERPs). Many people skip Google searches when looking to
buy things and go first to Amazon; why not add commerce in general?

------
20years
"Amazon is requiring a $35,000 ad budget to run the spots at 5 cents per view
to run the ads for 60 days"

This pretty much excludes small to mid-sized sellers. They are obviously
targeting bigger companies with bigger budgets.

With that in mind, I don't see it as a competitor to Google/YouTube or
Facebook YET. If they open it up to lower budget campaigns, I can absolutely
see it making a dent in YouTube ads.

~~~
justfor1comment
"Large business helps other large businesses to become larger businesses, to
become larger business."

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dvt
The idea that Amazon will pose an actual threat to Google (audience breadth)
or FB (audience granularity) is nuts. Just how I'm sure Apple also really felt
it when Amazon released the Fire Phone.

~~~
whoisjuan
Except that's not how it works. Facebook, Google and Amazon have very similar
audience outreach in the US. If you're company in US market with an online
advertising budget of 100K, and you were spending that budget on Facebook and
Google, you might also start considering Amazon.

Of course it's a threat. Any company in this situation can shift part of their
online advertising budget to Amazon, at the expense of ad dollars that were
previously spent on Facebook or Google.

~~~
dvt
Since reddit/Twitter/Snap wasn't a threat, I highly doubt Amazon will be. The
fact that agencies might spend a few bucks here and there to "try out Amazon
ads" is beside the point. As someone that has been working in ad tech for
about 5 years now, I don't think you truly appreciate the reach and level of
optimization FB & GOOG have.

~~~
whoisjuan
I think you're underestimating how incredibly dominant can Amazon be. Amazon
is not Reddit/Twitter/Snap. They literally can do bulldozer moves into
industries. Their ad placements are also very valuable. They already have the
purchase intent that lacks in any of the examples you mentioned.

------
dralley
I'd love to see Google and Facebook get some competition, but why does it have
to be Amazon :(

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tracker1
Google knows what I search for... Amazon knows what I spend my money on. I'd
say that might be a competitive advantage. Of course judging by the
suggestions I get after getting a gift for someone else, maybe not.

~~~
rchaud
Google knows what you buy on Amazon too. That's why Amazon had to start using
emails like "Your order of [X] and 3 more items have shipped".

Previously, they'd list all ordered items in the email but because Google
could grab that data via Gmail (for "relevant advertising purposes", of
course), they changed their approach.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> Previously, they'd list all ordered items in the email but because Google
> could grab that data via Gmail (for "relevant advertising purposes", of
> course), they changed their approach.

So that's why they did that. I wish they had limited that change to gmail
addresses. I host my own email, and I wish they hadn't made me usability
collateral damage.

~~~
rchaud
A lot of people use a legacy ISP or mac.com email addresses and just auto-
forward to gmail, so a Gmail only filter wouldn't have worked comprehensively,
so I guess they had to go scorched earth.

------
judge2020
Doesn't Amazon already have mobile ads? Maybe this was just amazon-on-adsense
but I remember often seeing Amazon items I've recently viewed show up in other
apps.

~~~
eclipxe
This is ads in the sense of Amazon providing Ad display space for other
advertisers in Amazon owned properties.

------
systemspeed
I'm not sure why Amazon thinks mobile video ads are a good idea at a time
their marketplace has taken a serious hit in reputation.

Most people are already wary of counterfeit goods on the marketplace. For many
household goods, cheap offerings from fly-by-night operations clutter the
search results. Review sections are chock-full of 5-star reviews reading
"Great product!" or similarly generic messages. Many sellers have begun
essentially paying their reviewers with free goods via the Vine program; and
of course those 99.9% of those reviews are favorable.

What used to feel like a premium experience now feels closer to a dollar store
experience full of questionable products. Video ads on top of that will
probably decrease my engagement; time will tell whether I'll continue to use
Amazon for goods not available in my locale.

~~~
cheeze
This is the top comment of literally every Amazon thread. This has _nothing_
to do with ads.

I know that this will always get upvoted here, but IMO this comment provides
no actual value wrt the article posted...

I agree that the counterfeit problem is annoying, but I question how much
HNers overstate the "serious hit in reputation" that Amazon has taken.

Do you have any actual data to show that is true more than antecdotal HNer
(not your average customer _at all_) comments?

~~~
groby_b
Yes, there's plenty of evidence. But let's go to the horse's mount - Amazon
itself, in its 10K, lists counterfeit goods as a business risk.

[https://qz.com/1542839/amazon-has-finally-admitted-to-
invest...](https://qz.com/1542839/amazon-has-finally-admitted-to-investors-
that-it-has-a-counterfeit-problem/)

Sure, they list it as a potential problem only, but I think we can at least
agree it's worth considering, no?

~~~
jhall1468
Every open marketplace is always going to list counterfeit goods as a business
risk, because it is. That's not the same thing as implying that their
reputation is damaged. On the contrary, Amazon's horrible reputation for
counterfeit goods seems to exist here and on reddit and that's pretty much it.

~~~
throwawaymath
_> Every open marketplace is always going to list counterfeit goods as a
business risk, because it is._

On the contrary, Amazon did not list counterfeit goods as a business risk in
its 10-K filings prior to 2019.[1] It has been an open marketplace since
before 2019.

That does seem to imply they only started taking it seriously as a business
risk somewhat recently, which _could_ be interpreted as hedging against
reputation damage.

Otherwise I'm in agreement that there's outsized discussion of the problem on
reddit and HN.

_________________________

1\. [https://ir.aboutamazon.com/sec-
filings?field_nir_sec_form_gr...](https://ir.aboutamazon.com/sec-
filings?field_nir_sec_form_group_target_id%5B%5D=471&field_nir_sec_date_filed_value=2018&items_per_page=10)

~~~
kop316
To provide a correlary, I am sure Boeing didn't mention software and MACS as a
risk until a month ago. Why would Amazon even acknowledge counterfeits to be
an issue until it actually effects business?

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justindocanto
I'm guessing it would be cheaper and/or more profitable to run their own ad
network than it would be to pay for running ads.

Think about how they've turned expenses into profit in almost every other
aspect of their business.

\- Shipping their books? Ship their own + others and make a profit

\- Hosting their website? Host their own + others and make a profit

\- Advertising their products? Advertise their own + others and make a profit.

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cm2012
Amazon ads are a HUGE deal. They already have about 20% of FB's total ad
volume. That's nuts for a side product.

~~~
nerfhammer
by impressions or by revenue?

It wouldn't surprise me if ads on amazon monetize better, but it would
surprise me if they had anything close to the impression volume

~~~
cm2012
Revenue. Total spend on the platform.

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haoc
I bet once Amazon is more serious about Ads business, it will be uglier than
others.

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h3ckr
Lol, so they show you ads to buy stuff on an app you literally open to buy
stuff? This is a joke.

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known
I've never seen Cisco, Intel and Microsoft competing with each other;

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kakaoscott
I was waiting for this!

