I could probably make Google a bunch of money.
I’ve been noticing something lately on NRO and other sites that have side-ads, and something I really hate, popups.
The ads keep showing me sites I’ve looked up recently on Google, such as Choice Hotels and DeWalt Factory Outlet. Presumably because Google is tracking me and showing me ads they think I want to see.
Here’s the problem. I already have been to Choice Hotels. Why don’t the ads show me other hotel websites or sites touting other aspects of travel?
For the DeWalt Tools site info, why don’t they show other tool sellers?
Seems like Google’s tracking algorithms are terribly primitive. Amazon seems to do a much better job of extrapolating from a user’s search pattern to what else he might be interested in.
This is called “remarketing.” They follow you around the internet and keep showing you ads. It can be effective for high volume sites.
If you have already clicked on Choice Hotels, you are more likely to click on them again than to click on another hotel chain. Based only on your Choice Hotels click, they could reasonably assume that you are more likely to click on another hotel, car rental, etc, than to click on an ad for Joe’s Crab Shack, but Choice is still the most likely than anything else and clicks are what they get paid for.
These people are PhDs and experts at data mining, with immense data sets and the hardware to mine them. They know what works.
I've experienced something similar. I don't know that it originated with Google, but for a time I constantly was shown ads about sites I'd recently patronized, or had been ordering from for years. That seems to have slacked off, and it never made any sense.
And now, if I go to WalMart, I soon receive an email showing me additional items I might be interested in "based on the purchases during my recent trip to my local WalMart." Or maybe I knew what I wanted to buy, and bought everything I wanted to buy.
Some of the tracking is comical and some of it irritating, and it can begin to seem pretty intrusive and presumptuous. And more and more tracking and follow-up emails is going on within various online vendor sites.
The reason Google show you the ads of the sites you have already visited is because research has shown them that most folks do not buy an item the first time they visit a site but the reminder of showing you the ad again results in a huge amount of sales. Same goes for recruiting....if I can track you to my applicant tracking system for a job and you fall off and do not complete the application....which happens about 70% of the time.....I show you the job again later or remind you that it is still open say a week later and you go back and fill out the app. and apply.