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by 1vuio0pswjnm7 190 days ago
"It annoys me that big-tech marketing has made most people believe that "personalised advertising" means they get ads which are more "useful" to them."

"relevant" is another term seen in addition to "useful"

But "relevant" is relative

For example, "relevant" to what?

It's only if Big Tech has collected data about the ad target and, e.g., made some guess about their intent, that the ads could be "relevant"

Whether the ads are truly "relevant" is a question for the reader. The term "relevant" might just be marketing fluff

Either way, Big Tech will keep the data vacuum humming

1 comments

Well I can list some things which are completely irrelevant (happens even in online ads despite the advancements).

I got an offer for life insurance for US veterans - I’m not a US veteran so this has nothing to do with me.

I got an ad for women’s hygiene products, but I’m not a woman. So that’s completely wasted on me.

I just bought a mattress, and I don’t need a 2nd mattress, so all of those are irrelevant.

When I bought a vacuum on Amazon, I got cross-sells for other vacuums for several weeks. I don’t know how many avid vacuum collectors Amazon studied to conclude that those were the best ads to show me (not a vacuum collector).
Some of that is those advertisers want toeget everyone. You are not a women but odds are you live with one (at some point in life) who asks you to go buy something for her.