Outside a captive platform like Amazon, most ads are garbage and a total waste of money.
If I’m on Amazon trying to buy X and my search for X “promotes” an option to the top of the list yeah that probably influences me buying that.
But the broader online ads are a total waste of money. Yes, I once searched a question about golf balls… no I don’t want to see “targeted ads” about golf balls following me all over the internet for the next three weeks.
Local advertisements can be nice. The advertisement section in the local newspaper was a thing people used to actually seek out, once upon a time. The real problem is the scaling of advertisement frameworks globally and algorithmically serving individuals or certain groups. It is strictly parasitic at that level.
Except for socialising the entire internet age, giving poor people in 3rd world slums the same access to the same platforms as the richest 0.001%.
No one likes to acknowledge this, but there is an alternate timeline where only the rich kid in school has a Google account, reddit account, meta account, and almost all content is still produced by massive media conglomerates.
Ads suck and everyone hates them, but don't lose sight of what they enabled by hyperfocusing on the bad.
> No one likes to acknowledge this, but there is an alternate timeline where only the rich kid in school has a Google account, reddit account, meta account.
It is not at all obvious that this would be a worse timeline to live in.
This will end in another 'adpocalypse' episode. Something like: ChatGPT generates recipes from the Anarchist Cookbook and adds Home Depot ads at the end, or inserts Amazon affiliate links for the Turner Diaries.
> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic. However 0.46% is a shockingly low conversion rate.
I'm not an ad guru by any means, but isn't it expected that you will get junk clicks with a bid like that? Seems like a you-get-what-you-pay-for scenario.
I have no idea why anyone would click on any ad anywhere other than by accident, not knowing if the link might take them to some malware site these days.
I clicked on a couple ads once because I was desperate - I needed a cheap flight with a tight deadline and my usual search engines didn't help. I thought "if these ads deliver what they promise, I'll never book anywhere else".
facebook ad targeting is also garbage. They have my entire history since 2004 and they still sometimes: think I'm a woman, think I need things for a newborn, think I'm in the market for "short men clothing" (I'm 6'0"), and so on. Sometimes I get ads for farm equipment (I am a lifelong city dweller).
Ads are part of the enshitification of ChatGPT. In the short-term it might offer them some kind of lifeline and I'm sure in their next investor call they'll highlight their revenue from Ads.
But if their competitors (including open-weight models) can offer similar quality and ease of use, Ads is just another reason _not_ to use them.
I occasionally enjoy well executed ads, like something that’s creative enough to make me curious, but nowadays, I’m seeing a lot of ads on YouTube that’s obviously low-effort AI slop, they are boring, fake, and depressing.
I saw them today in the app and yeah… first idea - enshitification. Ads were cringe. But google works the same way - cringe ads. I use google in 3-4 different languages and it’s completely lost.
Outside a captive platform like Amazon, most ads are garbage and a total waste of money.
If I’m on Amazon trying to buy X and my search for X “promotes” an option to the top of the list yeah that probably influences me buying that.
But the broader online ads are a total waste of money. Yes, I once searched a question about golf balls… no I don’t want to see “targeted ads” about golf balls following me all over the internet for the next three weeks.
Everything with ads is garbage. All the time. It poses no benefit to humanity even a little bit.
Local advertisements can be nice. The advertisement section in the local newspaper was a thing people used to actually seek out, once upon a time. The real problem is the scaling of advertisement frameworks globally and algorithmically serving individuals or certain groups. It is strictly parasitic at that level.
Maybe we should look at paid media as a honeypot.
Without paid media, marketing spend gets pushed to “organic” and “content marketing” aka blog spam and other crap.
Yes.
But then, is any and all public communication about a product or a service originating from a stakeholder of said product or feature basically an ad?
Except for socialising the entire internet age, giving poor people in 3rd world slums the same access to the same platforms as the richest 0.001%.
No one likes to acknowledge this, but there is an alternate timeline where only the rich kid in school has a Google account, reddit account, meta account, and almost all content is still produced by massive media conglomerates.
Ads suck and everyone hates them, but don't lose sight of what they enabled by hyperfocusing on the bad.
> No one likes to acknowledge this, but there is an alternate timeline where only the rich kid in school has a Google account, reddit account, meta account.
It is not at all obvious that this would be a worse timeline to live in.
The clear mark of someone who's never owned a business and had to find customers to sell their product.
This will end in another 'adpocalypse' episode. Something like: ChatGPT generates recipes from the Anarchist Cookbook and adds Home Depot ads at the end, or inserts Amazon affiliate links for the Turner Diaries.
> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic
Did they try bidding more? It's possible they are just only getting the dregs. (In which case the ads would be expensive instead of garbage)
> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic. However 0.46% is a shockingly low conversion rate.
I'm not an ad guru by any means, but isn't it expected that you will get junk clicks with a bid like that? Seems like a you-get-what-you-pay-for scenario.
I have no idea why anyone would click on any ad anywhere other than by accident, not knowing if the link might take them to some malware site these days.
I clicked on a couple ads once because I was desperate - I needed a cheap flight with a tight deadline and my usual search engines didn't help. I thought "if these ads deliver what they promise, I'll never book anywhere else".
Believe it or not, they did not deliver.
It’s wild to me that people click ads.
Advertisements don't need to be clicked to work. Billboards clearly work for reasons other than being clicked.
Have you observed any humans and their decision making capabilities lately? :)
For what it's worth, the picture at the top of the article is a textbook example of very high accuracy!
Wouldn't it be low accuracy but high precision?
If I were Mark Zuckerberg I would be salivating waiting for a call from Sam Altman.
facebook ad targeting is also garbage. They have my entire history since 2004 and they still sometimes: think I'm a woman, think I need things for a newborn, think I'm in the market for "short men clothing" (I'm 6'0"), and so on. Sometimes I get ads for farm equipment (I am a lifelong city dweller).
Ads are part of the enshitification of ChatGPT. In the short-term it might offer them some kind of lifeline and I'm sure in their next investor call they'll highlight their revenue from Ads.
But if their competitors (including open-weight models) can offer similar quality and ease of use, Ads is just another reason _not_ to use them.
Ads are responsible for the enshitification of everything. Literally everything.
- Why is online news just partisan rage-baiting? Ads
- Why is real journalism dying? Ads
- Why are your web search results less helpful? Ads
- Why are recipes 2,000 words long? Ads
- Why is social media engineered for scroll-maxxing?
- Why is your car/TV/refrigerator spamming you?
- Why are pharmaceuticals so expensive?
- Why is your population voting for assholes?
Future generations are going to look back at how we live with advertising the same way we look back on leaded gasoline and asbestos.
I occasionally enjoy well executed ads, like something that’s creative enough to make me curious, but nowadays, I’m seeing a lot of ads on YouTube that’s obviously low-effort AI slop, they are boring, fake, and depressing.
I saw them today in the app and yeah… first idea - enshitification. Ads were cringe. But google works the same way - cringe ads. I use google in 3-4 different languages and it’s completely lost.
Can confirm. I've spend over $1000 as a test and I see even worse results. Absolute garbage compared even to cheap garbage paid social traffic.