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0 pointslifeisstillgood5y ago0 comments

>>> prefer looking at ads that are relevant to their search, when they made that search with commercial intent?

This is a good distinction, if it also contains the nub of the problem - "with commercial intent". FAANG have very little (no, they have no) way of telling if my intent is commercial or just day to day existence.

I spend most of my life not wanting to buy stuff, and yet most of my online interaction assumes that I am wallet out ready to buy ... something.

(I assume (as a straight man) this is what most women feel like on a night out.)

this is also why I think duckduckgo has the right approach - for all FAANGs targeting based in behaviour etc, they are trying 99% of the time not to present the best match given commercial intent but they are trying to convert non-commercial behaviour into commercial behaviour. No wonder the ad conversion rates are poor. And we could get pretty much same response rates with context-only ads ala duckduckgo - or even a tag in google like "shopping: men's trainers"

In short FAANG are like those guys trying to "neg" women into sex. All the effort is in the wrong place.

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6 comments · 1 top-level

vkou5y ago· 5 in thread

If you are searching for 'good hotel in x' or 'mechanic in y', it's a pretty safe bet to say that you probably have commercial intent.

If you live a truly ascetic life, it's possible that you don't make those kinds of searches.

neolog5y ago

If I'm looking for a good hotel in x, I probably want good information on the quality of hotels in x. I don't want ads about the hotels.

lifeisstillgoodOP5y ago

Yes that's true. (Hilariously, duckduckgo does not track me so my search history is hard to work out ...)

OK: who was phil hartman, alan may quotes, history of netscape, treatment for wrenched neck muscle, dad jokes and campsites in the new forest.

So yes, you could sell me something related to each of those (a dad joke book, a phil hartman dvd) but there is no commercial intent there except for the last, and that's more research than intent.

I am not spending my life in a state of purchasing arousal (I think the analogy to women navigating a world of men is interesting)

But more importantly the lead quality is terrible. I think this is what people are learning - FAANG almost always provides low quality lead density. (More research needed)

It may be a good explanation of Amazon's 20 billion dollar new ad business - if you search for anything in amazon you are almost certainly doing so with commercial intent.

Jeff might win again :-)

taurath5y ago

Commercial intent is not consent to be tracked and tagged. Would you visit a Walmart if you knew it had cameras tracking your every eye movement, even if they claimed it was anonymized?

krageon5y ago

Off-topic subject aside, for the vast majority of people the answer would be "yes". That still doesn't make it okay, but I feel like it highlights why that's not a good way to divine whether or not something is ok.

vkou5y ago

> Commercial intent is not consent to be tracked and tagged.

It's not, but that's not what this subthread is about.

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