Friday, July 20, 2012

Facebook Ads, Work?

It's all relative. In their quest to provide the most data to their customers (advertisers, WE are the product), the task of keeping it relevant increases exponentially. Keep records is a huge job that NEVER ends.

Humans can have short attention spans, and those on idle time can skew the data.  Just because I looked at a robot vacuum twice this week does not necessarily mean I'll want to see ads for local maid services, or classes on robotics. It may have been pure boredom.
I really had no idea why certain people were targeted to see the ads I'd paid for on FB, and why they ignored them. The same ads performed well on online forums related to their subject matter.
-Do I want ads about my product displayed at what appears to be random?

I think the reason Google's ads work, is that they are more session- rather than user- focused. A visit to Google Search is an exercise in asking for information on a specific subject, at that time, which indicates an immediate interest, with displayed items that the user feels were desired entirely. The ads shown are relevant to a question on their part.
-Do I want ads that make it clear that I'm being monitored for my marketability?

A FB visit is more passive: the user is presented information that may be selected, based on the activity of related users. Part of that experience was in knowing those presentations were organic: from actual people you know. I believe a core value of the user experience has been lost, because that is no longer the case.
I have indeed asked friends if they'd referred me to a posting, only to find out they'd allowed a Bot to post as them when selecting something to do related to FB.
-Do I care if my friends are impersonated by machines?

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