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Comment by nlh | Hacker News Reader

Every time there's a thread on HN about advertising, there's at least a few comments (there are already some in this thread) that claim, loudly, "Ads don't work on me! I never buy things based on ads!".

The thing is, they're all wrong. Advertising is a trillion-dollar business because it works. The human mind is susceptible to suggestion, and it's been demonstrated over and over again for basically as long as we've had civilization.

What is ALSO true, however, is that ad dollars are exceeeeeedingly inefficiently deployed. Which is why you experience things like weird retargeting on things you've already boight. I experience this too -- there are several brands that for which I'm a happy paying customer and I still see their ads 1-2 times a day.

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> Claim "Ads don't work on me! I never buy things based on ads!". The thing is, they're all wrong.

All you've said is "A big industry does this. Therefore it works on everyone".

Which doesn't follow at all. The industry doesn't have to work on everyone to be profitable, and could operate effectively even knowing that. Whether they'd be able to take peoples' money as effectively if they said "our ads work on 73% of people, making them 0.45% more likely to buy the advertised product"... doesn't matter.

The existence of whales on the online gaming market suggests a counter-strategy might be more effective: some people are very, very susceptible to ads. Targetting them is likely to be both cheaper and more effective than trying to get the attention of people who are minimally affected by ads.

It's hardly shocking news that the advertising industry might lie, though. To the clients as well as their targets.

Ads don't work on me because I block all ads*. I sent through my wife's Instagram account earlier today (with her consent of course) and the amount of ads is mind boggling. Sometimes it's not easy to figure out what's an ad and what's not.

* where I can. I still struggle with "sponsored" content, or fake review sites. It's becoming harder and harder to figure out what isn't an ad, and I hate it. If I see a good review, I don't know if it isn't an ad. If I see a bad review, I don't know it's not a competitor's doing.

Review sites are probably all ads these days. Its better to search reddit or something like that for recommendations, but of course those can get astroturf'd, but for smaller brands that likely isn't an issue.

>>> The human mind is susceptible to suggestion, and it's been demonstrated over and over again for basically as long as we've had civilization.

I don't doubt that advertising works on me at some level. This is all the more reason to limit my own exposure to it. I'm one of those people who reacts with surprise and revulsion when we see what the Web looks like with ads.

>>> Which is why you experience things like weird retargeting on things you've already boight.

My favorites so far are the e-mails I get from online vendors, that say things like:

"People who bought shoes have also bought these items..."

"Here are some things to go with your batteries..."

It depends where and when, I find that Instagram/Meta ads sometimes work for me, and Amazon related items occasionally do too. But more often than not (I wrote in another comment) I get ads in a category I am interested in, but from one of the many brands that sell a marked-up "recycled polyester fabric! 50% off!" type of thing that's clearly worse than "real" brands, like a backpack worse than the one I'm trying to replace.

I've been looking for a certain home improvement product for roughly six months. I've searched on-line dozens of times, I've been to stores, nobody wants to sell it to me, show me ads, nothing.

>Advertising is a trillion-dollar business because it works

How many months in the corporate world did you spend before figuring out that money = results and substance takes precedence over appearance?

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