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by ksec 438 days ago
>the 300 tracking scripts every site has to try to squeeze as much revenue as possible

Let's say tracking for revenue is required and not an argument to be made. The question I never quite understand is why cant we have ONE scripts to rule them all? I remember there was a company / services that may be called Segment? And quick google search doesn't have anything familiar, that offers something like that.
2 comments
whstl 438 days ago
The reason we still have 300 scripts is that ad-tech companies want direct control over their tracking rather than relying on an intermediary.

So they make it harder or more limited to integrate with tools like Segment.

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ivan_gammel 438 days ago
> why cant we have ONE scripts to rule them all

Because those tracking scripts are provided by competing advertising platforms and they want to own the data.

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PaulHoule 438 days ago
Nobody trusts anybody else. The site wants to over estimate clicks, the advertiser wants to under estimate. Of course the numbers won’t match up because you lose people along the way. If you have 300 trackers they can’t all be lying to you.
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ivan_gammel 438 days ago
>The site wants to over estimate clicks, the advertiser wants to under estimate

Only if you show the ads. Many companies do not, but still use lots of trackers. Why? Because their performance marketing team is trying to find the right mix of advertisement channels, so they go for paid search and clicks to Google, Meta and lots of other AdTech. In that case trackers are needed to optimize spending by analyzing user behavior. If certain cohort spends more time on the site, they will get more ads of it. If another cohort leaves the site quickly, they will see less ads. The promise of AdTech in general is that they personalize ads as much as possible to reduce your customer acquisition costs (CACs) - you won't waste money on showing ads to people who won't buy your product. So they need the data and they have to own it, because personalization is their competitive advantage.

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ksec 438 days ago
Arh! That makes a lot more sense. Thank You. Sometimes I do wish I could learn a lot more about online advertising. But it is mostly a forbidden topic on HN.
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