[jqpabc123]

Personal opinion --- a big part of the problem with ads is due to personalization.

It is fundamentally anti-consumer and is a proven, sure fire way to annoy your visitors and encourage them to use ad blocking --- which more than half now do according to some recent stats.

Personalized ads are the dumbest idea since the invention of advertising. When more than half of your target audience actively refuses to engage and cooperate, you might be doing something wrong.

[Grimblewald]

A bigger problem in my opinion is when ads become the primary focus of a site. When most sites I visit had ads that take up so much visual realestate that I cannot find the content I was actually after, then I will simply start using ad blockers. Sites which use ads appropriately are unfortunately caught in the crossfire. I suppose it would be handy to have ad-blockers not block by default, and rather users can add a domain to a 'black-list' (instead of a white-list which I won't remember to add sites to, as there is not reason to) if it uses scummy advertising practices, where this black-list could be tracked and users can, if they want, download the K-votes blacklist, which is a collection of domains which more than k users have blacklisted.

[estomagordo]

One can imagine that the ad networks has data that says otherwise though.

[jqpabc123]

One can also imagine that the ad networks really don't care as long as advertisers continue to buy into the ad auction ruse.

The ad networks are an opaque "black box". You only get to see what they allow you to see. It is essentially built around faith.

It's difficult for advertisers to compare to alternatives because they have effectively monopolized the market.

For consumers, the most sensible response is increasingly ad blocking. As this trend increases, advertisers will (hopefully) be forced to start abandoning the concept as ineffective.

In the long term, the big winner in all this is likely to Amazon --- where advertising is mostly context based.

[estomagordo]

Not faith, data.

Customers obviously can see performance.

How is it that you imagine that you know this better than these people do?

[jqpabc123]

How is that you imagine that "these people" don't have full control over any data and the entire process?

[estomagordo]

I genuinely would like to know how it even happens that you think you know better.

Then, data transparency is a thing and advertisers can obviously also measure their performance.

[jqpabc123]

The point is, I don't know better --- and neither do you.

For example, you and I have no idea if the ad networks are bidding against their own advertisers in order to drive revenue. They hold all the cards.

Ad fraud is a growing business and ad networks are not the ones getting hurt directly by it.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/677466/digital-ad-fraud-...