> At the end of the week, we both saw no increase or even a mention in our targeted adverts regarding snowmobiles.
While I do respect you and your spouse for trying this experiment, it's entirely too small a sample size to really prove that this doesn't happen. There are a ton of variables involved, the biggest being which advertisers may or may not be listening in at any given time. It's hardly a controlled experiment, and I can't say I can put any stock in it.
It also does not prove that it is observer bias. I have had things pop up that I am %100 absolutely positive I never in any way shape or form looked into, yet there the ads were after a short conversations with others who did have an interest.
One thing i thought of and wanted to test: what if you yourself don't do any internet queries but someone on the same network as you does? I've had conversations with people, one time we were talking about a concert venue which i did not look up, but i did start to receive ads for that concert venue. It creeped me out initially, but I believe the other person on the same home network was googling or looking for information on that venue on their phone. I believe we were just associated together for advertisement purposes.
I’m pretty sure this happens. When I was doing work with NetSuite, my roommate (who has no interest in anything remotely related to enterprise software, and doesn’t have any other devices that could have been listening in) started getting ads for them on his laptop.
It makes sense for them to target by IP, so if one person in an office is researching the product they can start targeting the entire office and maybe get their ad in front of an exec who can make a purchasing decision.
While I do respect you and your spouse for trying this experiment, it's entirely too small a sample size to really prove that this doesn't happen. There are a ton of variables involved, the biggest being which advertisers may or may not be listening in at any given time. It's hardly a controlled experiment, and I can't say I can put any stock in it.
It also does not prove that it is observer bias. I have had things pop up that I am %100 absolutely positive I never in any way shape or form looked into, yet there the ads were after a short conversations with others who did have an interest.