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We want to tell you a story, not a breaking one (you know we don't usually do this), but a decidedly interesting one. In the past we have spoken in a manner thorough of Cookies, What are and because the advertising ones are probably useless. We had already hypothesized, thanks to some studies that confirmed this hypothesis 1 2, which were of little use. It is in fact very likely that profiling does not serve to sell more, but only serves to sell junk at a high price. We tell you a story and ask ourselves: the Cookies advertising are useless?
To avoid generating confusion let's say one thing right away: when we talk about the uselessness of Cookies advertising we mean that probably they are useless for what they say and promise to do. THE Cookies and of tracers profiling, unfortunately, work very well and are also very effective for manipulating public opinion.
The story comes directly from Wired who told it a few months ago. The main Dutch public broadcaster (NPO), the RAI of the Netherlands, to clarify, has started a truly interesting experiment. It allowed its users to browse its site without it Cookies in an extremely simple way. So simple that the 90% of anyone who entered the site refused to be tracked. According to a study conducted by Google in 2019, disable i Cookies from third parties would reduce publishers' revenue by more than 50% 3. But a study conducted by Google on the need to use Cookies it's like asking the innkeeper if the wine is good. It is not for nothing that similar research carried out by an independent team of economists instead spoke of a decline in 4% 4.
In fact, we know that the vast majority of Google's earnings it comes precisely from advertisements 5. And even more so targeted the more they are paid.
In short, theNPO he expected an incredible disaster since his users' 90% no longer wanted to be tracked. However, no catastrophe occurred. Indeed, as in the best fairy tales, just the opposite happened: the ads were offered to users who had given up on the Cookies they earned more than those who accepted the Cookies! The profit has increased so much that the NPO he even decided to totally eliminate i Cookies advertisers. And guess what? His income only increased.
So they decided to stop using Google ads but to use another system which, instead of analyzing the user, analyzes what he is looking at. In this way the proposed advertising is not about the user's private experience, nor his age, his region of origin or his history.
Targeted ads are useless
In fact, try to think about how many times you have seen absurd advertisements while reading an article on the new iPhone just because perhaps you had searched for that word or that product on Google or up Amazon (and maybe in the meantime you have already purchased it). It's just an example of course, but perhaps the most sensible thing to do while looking at an article about the new iPhone is exactly that have advertising on iPhones and in general on smartphones. Not on what you saw and searched for two days earlier Facebook or up Youtube.
“When do people want to buy a Snickers?” said van Bentheim, recalling a conversation he had with someone who worked at an ad agency. “It's not because someone is in a specific age or in a specific region or has a high income; it's because they are hungry and they are looking for food at that moment.”
Quote from the article by Wired.
A story with a happy ending that validates what we have already thought for some time. THE Cookies advertisements are useless and perhaps even harmful.
It is also for this reason that we have decided not to use any advertising, in fact we currently only accept BAT donations via Brave because they are the only ones that do not weigh on your wallet in any way regardless of who you are.
The article by Wired it is very complete. It also talks about journalism and if the topic interests you we strongly recommend you read it all: wired.com/story/can-killing-cookies-save-journalism
Finally, we suggest an Italian Wired article on online advertising: Is digital advertising a giant with feet of clay?
Don't know English? Use the extension of Mate Translate to translate the entire page! We talk about it in our article on alternatives to Google Translate.
- New Study Shows That All This Ad Targeting Doesn't Work That Well[↩]
- What If Google And Facebook Admitted That All This Ad Targeting Really Doesn't Work That Well?[↩]
- Effect of disabling third-party cookies on publisher revenue[↩]
- Online Tracking and Publishers' Revenues: An Empirical Analysis[↩]
- How big companies make money[↩]
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