What's the difference? Ads are valuable to advertisers for a number of factors, including the estimated likelihood that the targeted user will pay money for $PRODUCT.

An increase in relevance isn't exactly the same thing as an increase in favor, but it's hard to believe they're not correlated.

Let me show you in practical terms - I've searched for some neat cases for a Pixel 9 Pro (for a family member). I'm now receiving targeted ads for phone cases on Instagram on my Galaxy S25.

- Ads I'd like: More cute cases for either P9Pro or a Galaxy S25 I'm watching the ads on.

- Ads the company is pushing: iPhone-only cases which I can't use anywhere.

Quite staggering the incompetence of targeting those :)

Sounds like the targeting is just not specific enough yet.

I'd hope "show cases for android phones on an android phone" to be something rockstar engineers at ad companies figure out rather easily.

Or the ad content isn't being made specific enough. I know that at least for the cheap Aliexpress tier stuff, they'll make the same basic design for 12 different phones, so theoretically the same product listing might include iPhone and various Android variants, but the description might fail to reveal that.

I'm sort of surprised that the industry isn't 70% print-on-demand these days-- just say "we have a nice sturdy case design for the top 500 phone models, and upload your own art".

"Ads I like" would be like informative commercials about workshop tools, like how they were in the 70s.

Not emotion focused ads, which is what The Man wants me to see to make me buy his stuff.

I don't watch ads but if I did I would prefer a "what, how, price" setup.

There is little difference if we are talking cost per click. But many ads are still sold on cost per view

Advertising is not limited to companies trying to sell an innocuous product.

Ads you like vs things you'll actually buy are two very different things.

Samsung can't make money off me buying vintage tools or computer parts. I'd love to see those ads.

But Samsung can hit me with new washing machine ads, or ads for big businesses pushed thru their galaxy store.

The goal of any advertising service is to match people with relevant ads, and collecting data is a major part of how you do that. That’s what the author is referring to.

Or they could base it on the content that's next to the ad.

NYT among others found ads placed with content outperformed ads attempting to target users. Also avoided awkwardly advertising things that shouldn't be advertised alongside certain content.

This makes journalism on controversial subjects unprofitable. Who would want to do a content based ad on Israel/Gaza?

Probably aid groups like the Red Cross? I’ve seen plenty of ads from organizations whose premise is “this terrible thing is happening, donate to help end it!”

Fair enough.

They do both of these things simultaneously.

I'm talking about his conclusions from the "To be honest" paragraph.

People are not matched with "relevant ads" due to their interests, it is due to the advertisers interest in your demographics.

(also, the writer might be hedging his bets with ads/advertisers on his page)

Advertisers are only interested in the demographic of “might buy my stuff”, which is only people who can potentially be interested in your product.

I dislike this game where we mince words like it changes the fundamental argument. The two crowds want to be linked up in a way that transfers money most happily from consumers to producers. Unhappy purchases are likely to result in returns. Of course, if one advertiser can keep your returns below a certain rate (or won’t cause them to explode), that’s more ideal, so naturally the market will select for companies that do this unless they have some other incredible metrics outweighing that.

Really the only time this isn’t true is with companies designed around maximal waste - products are often too cheap to bother returning and are only meant to last a use or two anyways.

> The goal of any advertising service is to match people with relevant ads

The goal of any advertising service is fully automated population-scale digital pimping, with an extremely sophisticated matchmaking service (backed by all that data) as a value-add.

They put your ass on the RTB street to turn tricks. You get mindfucked by--and maybe catch some viruses from--any John who wants to take a crack at you. In return, you get this nice cheap TV/Youtube/Gmail/article.

Bitch better have my money!