"Personalised" advertising. Too late, I bought it yesterday

CelticRambler

Despite my best efforts to tell Google etc not to track me nor "personalise" my internet experience, every so often some ads slip through (outbrain seems to be the main culprit).

But what eejit came up with an algorithm that tries to persuade me to buy the very same thing that I ordered yesterday and will probably (hopefully) never buy again?

And what other eejit pays the first one to target me with ads for things I've already bought?

kneemos

Maybe they just saw you looking and don't know you bought?

Uncle_moe

It's not an algorithm at fault it's the advertiser for not eliminating you from their targeting if you have already purchased unless you purchased on another site, in this case they would be completely unaware, or alternatively you used a different device and they have not tracked you across mutliple devices.
The other alternative is that they don't really care, the likes of Outbrain advertising is low cost and mainly a traffic driver so advertisers are not overly concerned with it's lack of targeting options. They only need one or two conversions or else they are operating a model of monetising clicks out of the website they drove you to. E.g. the click in costs them 10c and they receive 15c if you click an ad on the site you land on. That model relies on volume and outbrain and taboola are ideal platforms.

JMNolan

kneemos wrote: »

Maybe they just saw you looking and don't know you bought?

They know...

suicide_circus

The only time I ever click one of these ads is by mistake.

kneemos

Amazon tend to send emails for stuff I've bought now that I think if it.
Probably comes more from searching and checking reviews though.

CelticRambler

Uncle_moe wrote: »

the click in costs them 10c and they receive 15c if you click an ad on the site you land on

Except for people like me who have a built-in mental filter, so I don't even see the ads unless they happen to be for something I recognise, and certainly never click them. :rolleyes:

Thinking about it, the only place they can be getting this info from is the site where I made the purchase. There are two items showing up today that I bought last week. That's the first time I've seen them in an Outbrain panel, even though I've been reviewing and price-checking both on several sites over the last three months ...

Ah well, the latest purchase has just been delivered. Time to go and play with it.

Fann Linn

Ad blockers.

Franz Von Peppercorn

So much for AI taking over the world though. I did buy an expensive TV online recently. Since then google and amazon and whoever else tracked that (not comfortable with the tracking either but let that pass for now) are convinced that I now want a huge collection of smart TVs in my house. Including the same one.

topper75

Well if the excitement about this new paradigm was that it put a rifle rather than shotgun in the hands of sellers, it would seem that they are using the rifles to pepper corpses.
It's not my greatest issue in life but I also find it somewhat annoying. You should be able to deactivate the link between the product and your profile with a single click ideally.

looksee

Some while ago I did a search for a particular product and looked at it on a particular site. I decided not to buy but the shop I had looked at started telling me about this product and continued doing so for weeks. Either I had seen it and bought it, or seen it and decided against it. Whichever, I did not need to be targetted about it.

Agreed, very annoying. Though come to think of it I have not been targetted with any searched items for a while now (apart from amazon to some extent) so I must have put some setting on my computer correctly!

Grayson

I've been getting adverts for the one plus 5 phone since it was released. I bought it on the day it was released. That was 6 months ago.

razorblunt

CelticRambler wrote: »

Despite my best efforts to tell Google etc not to track me nor "personalise" my internet experience, every so often some ads slip through (outbrain seems to be the main culprit).

But what eejit came up with an algorithm that tries to persuade me to buy the very same thing that I ordered yesterday and will probably (hopefully) never buy again?

And what other eejit pays the first one to target me with ads for things I've already bought?

The same eejit that wrote the algorithm that suggests jobs for you on Linked In, with jobs in your Company first!

CelticRambler

looksee wrote: »

...apart from amazon to some extent ...

Ah yes - Amazon! "Customers who bought this also bought ... " and then a dozen variations on the thing I'm looking at.

Well if this 2.5W whistles-and-bells ding-dong gizmo is any good, why did they buy the 2.2 version, unless this stuff is crap and they had to replace it? Or if the other stuff was crap and they bought this one as the replacement, WTF are you suggesting it for? :mad:

Amazon : you were looking at these shorts in summer. Recommended in winter: shorts
No you're grand thanks

Franz Von Peppercorn

kneemos wrote: »

Amazon tend to send emails for stuff I've bought now that I think if it.
Probably comes more from searching and checking reviews though.

Given they know what you bought I still don’t see why it would happen. Or can’t be stoped. Seems a waste of money.

CelticRambler

When the driverless cars arrive, will we have the same carry-on? You go to your uncle's month's mind Mass down the country one Sunday, and for the rest of the week the car wants to take you to every church between Dublin and Donegal.

Uncle_moe

Agree that it's an utter waste of time not to mention a total pain in the arse if you've already bought the item. That's just down to lazy advertising, they could easily enforce a rule that takes purchasers out of the target audience. You're right Outbrain has only started retargeting recently in Europe anyway. I think they have a deal with criteo whereby they use the outbrain network to serve you ads because outbrain have built a massive network of sites.
Unfortunately, ads will only grow in time when you look at FBs recent announcement that it will basically force all companies to advertise otherwise users will never see their posts. Also these ads report you as a conversion even if you never click on them but at some point make your own way to the site and make a purchase (post impression conversion). They infer that you were influenced by seeing the ad and would not have made the purchase otherwise.

Irish Guitarist

I keep getting ads on Facebook for a 'Diva Cup'. You'd think with all the information they collect they'd know I'm not the target audience.

Alun

Another advertising annoyance ... whenever I take the Irish Ferry service to the UK, my phone connects to their onboard WiFi which seems to be provided by a Norwegian company. For months afterwards I'm bombarded with ads from Norwegian companies, in Norwegian. No amount of cookie clearing seems to make any difference.

Pete Tong

You would be shocked at the way these companies track your data. They know you down to the finest detail - where your mouse hovered, how long you looked at an item, etc, etc... Terabytes of data.

Even the timing of when you see these adverts is precisely calculated. They know how long it takes for your type of person to make a decision and then up pops the advert. Could be 2 or 3 weeks later. Always careful not to 'wear out' a lead.

This is the facebook generation.