My favorite easy way to increase ad efficiency?
Exclude Android users. Really.
What's an example of this? I'm generally confused by your claim, because I've used a whole lot of internet and literally never bought anything through an ad.
If you are desperate and someone is able to convince you that he can solve your problems for only 20-50$ no questions asked, next day in delivered to your home wouldn't you click if you had the money?
Do a Google search for X accident lawyer, where X is literally anything, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
The most expensive targeted ads prey on the desperate. Personal injury, bankruptcy, addiction, jail, death and next of kin, cancer, you name it. Think if the worst possible things that could happen to somebody. Those are the most lucrative ad keywords
As dumb as it sounds when put like this, it actually works. When you start looking for it, marketing that exploits body image insecurities is particularly common.
And as counterpoint, if it was really so effective as you claim, why haven't we seen huge increases in ad spending lately?
And should also be banned. A painkiller being promoted and bought more by customers just because it has more money to spend in advertising is morally worse than the mere creepiness of regular (buy BS stuff you don't need) targeted advertisement.
Who needs ads?
Level the playing field with an online catalog where patients can discover (in, say, random order for each viewing, to avoid even sorting bias) all available painkillers.
You can then add voting to the catalog, so patients and doctors can weight in for how good they think the painkiller is -- but with huge fines and prison for any company trying to manipulate buy those votes.
Google is one of the biggest companies in the world solely from advertising revenue. Same with Facebook and other social media. The more information they have about you, the more terrible the ad targeting
Is that really the "obvious" inference?
Perhaps they're just good at selling something outrageously overpriced to a category of particularly gullible marks. It wouldn't be the first time in advertising history, I'm sure.
I used to run a campaign so well targeted that we had an 8% buy rate. That is, 8% of the people that saw the ad not only clicked, they actually bought the product.
Google charged us $35 for every click but the product was so expensive we still made a killing.
Targeted advertising needs to be banned for the good of society. It's evil, inisidious. All about trying your best to manipulate the worst traits of human nature for profit.
I can pretty easily find out if you're an addict, ex con, a gambler, in debt, illegal immigrant, bad English, maybe a minority. I'll find something you're probably insecure about and use that to sell you shit.
Also, I don't wanna waste money showing my ads to poor people. Can't do that directly, but there's plenty of proxies. Just add a bunch of "interests" to your audience. Things Like horse racing, wine collecting, yachts, expensive rugs.
I wish I was kidding, but everyone does this on targeted advertising platforms. It's a discrimination minefield, but since you use proxy characteristics for everything and everyone covers their eyes it's totally fine.