Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikejb | Hacker News Reader

I'm sceptical, but it's hard to prove or disprove. So many other factors that go into making ad decisions (what did people who are somehow similar to you show interest in? Your friends? What's currently trending in certain areas of the internet, etc.)

I've only seen one attempt (shown in a video online, the topic was 'dog toys'), where recorded conversations were claimed to influence ads. Lots of people indicated foul play in the video, so I didn't book it in my "that's happening"-bucket.

I've only tried to reproduce it once, half-hearted, and failed.

View on HN

The only problem with the parameters you listed is that you get served with the most random ads at the most optimum moments. I once saw an ad for Swiffer mop moments after mentioning casually to my friend that I am thinking of buying one.

That of course is suspicious. Do you sometime receive random ads that are completely out of the blue that you haven't talked about? (I'm asking because if you get shown 100 random ads per week, for how many can't you attribute them vs. how many seem to be related to some (online, offline) activity? Is it only by chance, and we just remember the 0.1% where it worked?)

I completely understand your point. Maybe I am noticing those ads only after I have consciously made the decision of buying the product. Or maybe the ads of that product are sub consciously nudging me to buy those products. Most of the display ads are meant to do just that

There's a cognitive bias toward noticing things that coincide like that, so it's quite possible you are getting Swiffer ads other times but notice it when you were just talking about it.

> you get served with the most random ads at the most optimum moments

If coincidences are just coincidences then why do they feel so contrived?

How many things have you casually mentioned and not seen an ad for? Maybe the Swiffer ad stood out to you because you had just talked about it? Maybe the reason you were thinking of buying one is because you saw an ad for it previously?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com