News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [... by annoyingnoob on Thursday April 16, 2020 @03:29PM (#22892616)
Its only good enough when you expect some non-trivial number of the ads to be wasted. If you care about that waste then IP is not good enough.

For some brands, like Disney in you example, spraying ads everywhere is good enough. For other brands that is not good enough, feminine hygiene products would be an example (both age and gender specific where IP alone would be a poor indicator).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [... by virgilp on Friday April 17, 2020 @03:18PM (#22902050)
How do you even define "non-wasted ads"? One ad = one buy? One ad = one interested person?

Targeted ads, even imperfectly-targeted ones, are "less wasted" than other kinds of ads. They are not perfect, by far (thankfully, if I may add so!), but "not good enough?" Come on, what exactly is good enough, then?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [... by annoyingnoob on Friday April 17, 2020 @05:59PM (#22903368)
>Targeted ads, even imperfectly-targeted ones, are "less wasted" than other kinds of ads.

How do you know that your 'targeting' is working? If you target females how do you measure how many females saw the ad? Targeted ads should go to the targeted audience or they likely went to waste - at least the advertiser didn't get what they paid for. The quality of your targeted audiences matters to your advertising customers.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [... by virgilp on Saturday April 18, 2020 @02:13AM (#22905713)
You get better conversion, in aggregate.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The relevance of IP addresses in the tracking ecosystem [... by annoyingnoob on Saturday April 18, 2020 @08:26PM (#22912326)
Even if that is true it comes at the expense of a lower signal to noise ratio - you are adding noise.
[ Parent | on HN ]