[ploggingdev]

> Regulate ads to target content, not users.

This. 1000x.

At it's core this is essentially like sponsorship. Anecdote : I've always found sponsored content more useful than the ads that ad networks show me and they are also not creepy like traditional ads. Eg- I search for strawberries on google, click through a few links. Separately I visit a tech blog to learn about how to monitor a VPS, guess what shows up on a site about servers and software? Strawberries! Creepy as f*uck and completely out of place.

Do you think an ad network that focuses on targeting content rather than users will work? Are there any such networks already? If not, it's time to build one.

[avaer]

What's your selling point to advertisers though? That you're a worse-targeted version of the big guys? You could say you're more user-friendly, but I don't think that's a premium most advertisers are willing to subsidize.

If this were a good opportunity for an ad network, then we wouldn't need any regulation to force it.

[idlewords]

This is why it's a regulatory argument, not a business argument. Without a regulatory floor, it's a race to the bottom.

People will always respond better to novel forms of advertising, and it takes bad actors some time to figure out how to game new kinds of online advertising. The result is ever more invasive surveillance and tracking techniques, in a Red Queen's race.

[ams6110]

Maybe the selling point is "we place your ads where they will be relevant and users won't be so inclined to block them" and back that up with statistics.

[marcosdumay]

It's ethical, so it won't backfire with the increasing share of savvy users. You'll probably have to ask for a lower price, but keep reading.

For sites you tell that it's ethical, like above, and that users won't block it because it's cached at your own server (you can do that because you don't track users). That may compensate for the smaller price. If it doesn't now, it will once more people start blocking ads.

For users you tell that it won't harm them, so they don't need to look into blockers (it will work if you take some effort to avoid malware too), and if they start blocking this kind of ad, you won't have any competitive advantage so harmful ads will win.

[wongarsu]

The selling point so advertisers would be click-through rates, engagement rates, proportion of ads blocked etc. But those numbers are kind of hard to predict. You would actually need to collect those numbers somewhere and compare them to numbers other advertising networks publish.