Do you want to see poor online ad targeting? Go to your own MySpace page. Log in, and just browse. When I do it I see lots of “dead ads.” “Dead Ads” do not relate to me most of the times. These are wasted ads. Bad online marketing.
MySpace knows what my interests are. They asked me that the day I signed up. When I am logged in I have my interests listed on the side of the page. But guess what the ads are about? They are about: dating, meeting someone to flirt with, finding a mate, meet singles, single net, etc. WHY?
They know that I am already married. And they know that my first interest listed is to travel with my wife and 2 daughters. This implies a happy marriage and a happy family. They know that. But the ads keep coming up about stuff that if consumed will adversely affect the marriage situation. I am sure they do not do it on purpose, to cause any marriage to fail. Neither do I think that this is some sort of testing of how strong we as husbands are, testing us to stay away from the alluring ads mentioned above. The only explanation is – poor ad targeting.
Computers are good at running programs, and programs are good at reading input information i.e. my interests. Computer programs are good at pulling out the ads which match up with my interests. I would love to see something about music, sailing, blogging, bass guitars, books and traveling. I even can put up with hit the monkey ad. But, no I must endure “the testing.”
Yes, it costs money to develop ad targeting system, but the ROI can be huge. Not to mention marriages left intact. We husbands do not need any more testing. There is already enough out there!
(Written after being prompted by @tamar and @cshel‘s Twitter post and post.)
