Re:Ask HN: How Can Ads Not Suck?
by chrischen on Saturday March 06, 2010 @09:15PM
(#1172737)
> Google does well because the ads shown on search bring forth some form of utility.
As far as my personal experience goes, I can't remember a time I encountered a Google ad that was useful for me, unless I was searching for "Amazon.com" and Amazon.com shows up in the sponsored links.
But to answer your question, ads can not suck by simply being perfectly targeted. Even though perfect is impossible, that should be the goal of all advertisers nonetheless. Get as much info about people, and send them only ads you know will be useful. Advertiser wins because they got the word out about their great thing, consumer wins because they got a great thing. The only thing this ideal wouldn't help is a shitty product. Shitty products aren't great, so if they get undeserved attention, they just screw over more people.
As far as my personal experience goes, I can't remember a time I encountered a Google ad that was useful for me, unless I was searching for "Amazon.com" and Amazon.com shows up in the sponsored links.
But to answer your question, ads can not suck by simply being perfectly targeted. Even though perfect is impossible, that should be the goal of all advertisers nonetheless. Get as much info about people, and send them only ads you know will be useful. Advertiser wins because they got the word out about their great thing, consumer wins because they got a great thing. The only thing this ideal wouldn't help is a shitty product. Shitty products aren't great, so if they get undeserved attention, they just screw over more people.