Bad targeting - worse than no targeting?
Posted on December 21, 2007 by Martin Zagorsek
So after all the fuss over Facebook’s announcement of their Beacon program and subsequent flipflop when users rebelled, they then announced a compromise opt-in program. Funny thing is, that was over 2 weeks ago, and I just checked my profile and there weren’t any external websites for me to opt into. Maybe external partners aren’t exactly lining up to join a service that’s gotten so much bad press?
Sponsored listing - in hebrew??
But on a more rudimentary level, Facebook has clearly begun targeting their ads. I just landed in Tel Aviv a few hours ago, and when I logged into Facebook (gotta keep that status up to date), all the ads were in Hebrew. It makes sense on a macro-targeting level, sell ad inventory by country and use the IP address to determine a user’s location. But in my case (and any other foreigners who happen to be visiting) the advertisers are wasting their money. I wonder how they handle even more multi-lingual countries like Belgium or Singapore?
This is one case where I wouldn’t mind them knowing a little more about me so they could at least send me ads I could read.. which is ultimately the argument marketers make in favor of targeting - that it results in ads you’re more likely to want to see. Then again, it’s kind of nice to not be able to read them, they become more decorative somehow. But in terms of the online business model, not so effective.. ultimately it’ll be a moot point, with the higher CPMs it will bring, better targeting is inevitable.
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