Targeted Advertising.

[Gramaisc]

I assume that the adverts that come up on the New Forum are somehow dependent on what I post, and are thus intended to be relevant to me, but I am currently being invited to join the Royal Marines, which would probably come as much of a shock to them as it would be to me.

Any other Forumites getting similar direct misses?

The 'best' targetting that I've ever seen was when a friend of mine put a comment on Facebook about having gone to Birmingham that day to start his chemotherapy programme. Ah, ha, "'Birmingham' has been mentioned", it thought, "let's put up a random Birmingham-related advert". Luckily, he saw the funny side of an advert offering vouchers related to "A thousand things to do in Brmingham before you die"

 

[Hothouse Flower]

I have got

"train to be a plumber"

Emm no thanks, not for me. Perhaps they think I'm butch.

They obviously didn't read about me bring a stepford wife then.

 

[Bob]

I have AA silencers

 

[Gramaisc]

I'm now being offered posh, 'Sunday supplement'-type houshold goods and an Aga. Less use than the £4 anti-wrinkle cream of a few minutes ago..

 

[Withnail]

I thought they tended to be more oriented to the thread, rather than the individual 'poster' as 'twere - i am almost certainly wrong about this.

If i am correct, and the ads are latching on to 'thread' themes rather than individual posts - or indeed a combination of the two - then presumably they would be the same regardless of who posted what?

On the whole they tend to quite unnervingly accurate, the best of which was the red diesel ads at the time of the petrol-panic. Though having said that, this thread displays 'Sage Accounts: Store and Share - Safeguarding your financial data' for me, which suggests that it's not always quite on the pulse - or is it?

 

[Bob]

I still have AA silencers​

 

[AA Silencers]

I thought I'd stick an ad on there to support the forum. That way admin helps fund our Forum and it seemed like a pretty sensible place for small businesses to advertise to the people they wanted to reach. If anyone thinks it's intrusive I'll get admin to pull the advert.

I still have AA silencers

I think this means one of 2 things Bob. Either a greater power is telling you that you must use AA Silencers, or you're trying to tell us you have a condition called AA Silencers. If the systems are greasy palms, an aching back and waking up in the night dreaming about cars then I am suffering from the same condition. I find the best antidote to be red wine. It's no cure but it certainly helps.

 

[Gadget]

Are we talking top or bottom here?
G

 

[Gramaisc]

Are we talking top or bottom here?
G

Both. I do get the AA Silencers now and then, but I'm currently also seeing the Sage one, whiich is of very little concern to me.

I don't object to them, I just find some of the targetting a little wild.

 

[AA Silencers]

I hadn't noticed any bottom advertising. That's the sort of thing you get on gentleman's speciality websites isn't it?

 

[Gramaisc]

The one on my 'bottom shelf' at the moment is offering me car hire in Portugal for as little as £12 a day.

 

[Gadget]

Ah well i have AA Silencers at the top lol, i don't even own a car and I have the Sage one at the bottom. I don't have any money either. Usually it's offering me girls from various different parts of the world Very sweet of it but i'm married.
G

 

[tek-monkey]

LG and Sage here, have seen a few well targetted ones but also a few odd ones.

 

[tek-monkey]

Now an American Express ad for transferring funds to Banladesh for just a quid, yet the appropriately named bottom ad features Asian lovelies from China and Thailand that want to chat now!

 

[flossietoo]

When you advertise on Facebook you opt to pay per page impression or click-though. If you choose to pay per page impression, you then fix your own unit price, effectively bidding against other advertisers who are also paying per impression within your target demographics. If you go on to Facebook and look at the adverts on the right hand side of the page, then hit refresh, some others will appear. Someone else logging on at exactly the same time as you will get different adverts, even if they share your age/gender/location/interests because FB is doing some pretty complicated stuff juggling the maximum money it can make from its advertisers. It's the same when you advertise on the web pages of newspapers. They effectively sell the same space to a number of different advertisers, guaranteeing a set number of page impressions. I should imagine that might be how the bottom ads on here work.
For what it is worth, I have LateRooms.com on here at the moment, more usually adverts promising to find me the woman of my dreams. I don't actually have those kind of dreams. On Facebook, I normally find adverts telling me how to look younger or lose weight. Despite what Facebook thinks, I do actually have quite a healthy body image and don't waste much time worrying about things I can't change.

 

[Goldilox]

Ha - I was just about to post that I'd had AA silencers as the top ad for at least a week when it suddenly changed to the Gatehouse. The bottom of the page ad changes all the time and atm I have a specialist dating site for military personnel.

 

[Wormella]

Before I logged in I had Romeo & Juliet at the top and Riverford veg boes at the bottom - since I already have tickets to go see R&J and I already get a veg box form Riverfod both were a little lost on me (for the record, now I've signed in ot post this I've got AA Silencers at the top and Late rooms at the bottom - since I have already used Laterooms to search for hotel prices once today - not a surprise)

 

[Gramaisc]

Ha - I was just about to post that I'd had AA silencers as the top ad for at least a week when it suddenly changed to the Gatehouse. The bottom of the page ad changes all the time and atm I have a specialist dating site for military personnel.

Uniformdating? I've had that one, too - the second from the right looks like a Girl Guide to me, that seems a bit shady..

 

[Wormella]

I think she's supposed to be a flight attendant...

 

[Gramaisc]

I think she's supposed to be a flight attendant...

That would be my story, and I would stick to it.