Checking out the Ads
12/08/22 01:54
I know very little about advertising. Over the span of my career, the congregations I served purchased a small amount of advertising, mostly yellow pages advertisements and small display ads in local newspapers. Our congregation in Rapid City did run one billboard campaign during the time I served as pastor, but it was the result of leadership by people who know a whole lot more about advertising than I do.
Lately, I have been paying a little bit of attention to the ads I see on my computer, trying to figure out why there are so many advertisements for products that I have no intention of purchasing. There are two types of advertisements that I encounter. The first are display ads that show up on the news sites I visit. I am not a fan of pay walls and I don’t subscribe to any of the news sources I see. This means that some sources, such as the Washington Post and New York Times limit the number of articles I can read. Sometimes, I only have access to headlines and small summaries of articles. Still, they put advertisements in front of me. It is my understanding that these advertisements are different for each person who visits the Internet. The algorithms that choose which ads to display use information gathered by my computer browser to determine which ads to show. Even though I have my privacy settings at a high level, there is information about me that can be collected by the Internet, including location for some of the programs where I have allowed it to be used. It really speeds up my use of mapping programs to allow the program to know my location for example. There is also quite a bit of information about my browsing history that can be collected. Which links I follow, which items I search and other information can be collected.
For several years, I have had a practice of occasionally entering strange search criteria just for the fun of exploring and of trying to throw off the algorithms. I have no intention of ever buying a “Purple Goth Mother of the Bride Dress,” but such a search can be interesting simply because it puts together things that others probably don’t. I try to avoid terms that might be related to criminal activity. I don’t search for explosives or street drugs or enter words like minor or illegal in my searches.
I confess that I do put a little bit of effort into throwing off the algorithms.
Still, it is surprising what advertisements keep popping up on the news sites I regularly visit. I see a lot of advertisements about working from home and virtual offices. That makes sense simply because I do quite a bit of work on my computer and I use a laptop that goes back and forth from home to the church office.
However, I also see a lot of advertisements for cars, including high performance sports cars, something that we have never owned and for which we have never shopped.
Youtube advertisements confuse me even more. The algorithms in Youtube mean that every individual user is served a different menu of advertisements. The number of advertisements and when they interrupt the videos is different for each individual who watches the videos. And there are a lot of people who watch videos on Youtube.
Youtube gives me a lot of short advertisements in Spanish. Perhaps that is because we lived for a year in Mount Vernon in a neighborhood that was majority hispanic. Our landlords spoke Spanish in their home and visited relatives in Mexico. Still, I am not fluent in Spanish. I guess I do find car advertisements in Spanish to be slightly less offensive than those in English and perhaps I have been slower to click away from advertisements in Spanish because I always try to understand what is being said.
I do not have an online brokerage account. We own a few stocks, but they are managed by an investment advisor. I don’t direct the trading of individual stocks. We are mostly invested in mutual funds. Our pension is completely controlled by professional investors. The Internet, however, seems to believe that I might soon launch an online brokerage account. Perhaps this is because I do use online banking and I monitor our bank accounts regularly. There is enough fraud and theft over the Internet, that I pay attention to bank balances and am careful to use only one insured credit card when making online purchases. I’m not willing to risk our retirement funds or our grandchildren’s college savings by becoming a day trader, however. I’m not one to invest the time and energy in studying the markets to want to make my own trades.
I’ve never taken a cruise and I have no plans to do so, but the Internet seems to think that I might be shopping for one. Perhaps it is because I linger over photographs of beautiful boats that I could never afford to own.
I have a subscription to Microsoft 365 for our home computers and we use Microsoft products at work, but I don’t have any control over decisions about which software is used over any computer networks. I don’t think Microsoft is going to sell me on additional purchases or subscriptions. Still, I get to look at a lot of Microsoft advertisements.
I’m not in the market for a home security system. My primary security system consists of quality locks on the doors and not having much that a burglar would be interested in stealing. There are no guns, jewelry or cash in our home. Well, I do have a container of change on my dresser, but its value is fairly low. I keep raiding it to make purchases. So far, I haven’t felt the need to plant a yard sign that clearly states to burglars that any cameras and other security devices I use can be disabled by disconnecting my Internet cable. I’ll leave installing security systems to others.
I’d like to think that I’m less likely to make impulse purchases based on the advertisements I see. Certainly I see lots of advertisements for products I have no interest in purchasing. Still, I wonder how the algorithms work. Maybe I should start searching for things in other languages. Of course I don’t know how to use the keyboard on my computer to enter Japanese characters and I don’t know how to spell any words using other alphabets. I may have to become more educated, or at least more creative, to get the internet to throw me truly strange advertisements.
Lately, I have been paying a little bit of attention to the ads I see on my computer, trying to figure out why there are so many advertisements for products that I have no intention of purchasing. There are two types of advertisements that I encounter. The first are display ads that show up on the news sites I visit. I am not a fan of pay walls and I don’t subscribe to any of the news sources I see. This means that some sources, such as the Washington Post and New York Times limit the number of articles I can read. Sometimes, I only have access to headlines and small summaries of articles. Still, they put advertisements in front of me. It is my understanding that these advertisements are different for each person who visits the Internet. The algorithms that choose which ads to display use information gathered by my computer browser to determine which ads to show. Even though I have my privacy settings at a high level, there is information about me that can be collected by the Internet, including location for some of the programs where I have allowed it to be used. It really speeds up my use of mapping programs to allow the program to know my location for example. There is also quite a bit of information about my browsing history that can be collected. Which links I follow, which items I search and other information can be collected.
For several years, I have had a practice of occasionally entering strange search criteria just for the fun of exploring and of trying to throw off the algorithms. I have no intention of ever buying a “Purple Goth Mother of the Bride Dress,” but such a search can be interesting simply because it puts together things that others probably don’t. I try to avoid terms that might be related to criminal activity. I don’t search for explosives or street drugs or enter words like minor or illegal in my searches.
I confess that I do put a little bit of effort into throwing off the algorithms.
Still, it is surprising what advertisements keep popping up on the news sites I regularly visit. I see a lot of advertisements about working from home and virtual offices. That makes sense simply because I do quite a bit of work on my computer and I use a laptop that goes back and forth from home to the church office.
However, I also see a lot of advertisements for cars, including high performance sports cars, something that we have never owned and for which we have never shopped.
Youtube advertisements confuse me even more. The algorithms in Youtube mean that every individual user is served a different menu of advertisements. The number of advertisements and when they interrupt the videos is different for each individual who watches the videos. And there are a lot of people who watch videos on Youtube.
Youtube gives me a lot of short advertisements in Spanish. Perhaps that is because we lived for a year in Mount Vernon in a neighborhood that was majority hispanic. Our landlords spoke Spanish in their home and visited relatives in Mexico. Still, I am not fluent in Spanish. I guess I do find car advertisements in Spanish to be slightly less offensive than those in English and perhaps I have been slower to click away from advertisements in Spanish because I always try to understand what is being said.
I do not have an online brokerage account. We own a few stocks, but they are managed by an investment advisor. I don’t direct the trading of individual stocks. We are mostly invested in mutual funds. Our pension is completely controlled by professional investors. The Internet, however, seems to believe that I might soon launch an online brokerage account. Perhaps this is because I do use online banking and I monitor our bank accounts regularly. There is enough fraud and theft over the Internet, that I pay attention to bank balances and am careful to use only one insured credit card when making online purchases. I’m not willing to risk our retirement funds or our grandchildren’s college savings by becoming a day trader, however. I’m not one to invest the time and energy in studying the markets to want to make my own trades.
I’ve never taken a cruise and I have no plans to do so, but the Internet seems to think that I might be shopping for one. Perhaps it is because I linger over photographs of beautiful boats that I could never afford to own.
I have a subscription to Microsoft 365 for our home computers and we use Microsoft products at work, but I don’t have any control over decisions about which software is used over any computer networks. I don’t think Microsoft is going to sell me on additional purchases or subscriptions. Still, I get to look at a lot of Microsoft advertisements.
I’m not in the market for a home security system. My primary security system consists of quality locks on the doors and not having much that a burglar would be interested in stealing. There are no guns, jewelry or cash in our home. Well, I do have a container of change on my dresser, but its value is fairly low. I keep raiding it to make purchases. So far, I haven’t felt the need to plant a yard sign that clearly states to burglars that any cameras and other security devices I use can be disabled by disconnecting my Internet cable. I’ll leave installing security systems to others.
I’d like to think that I’m less likely to make impulse purchases based on the advertisements I see. Certainly I see lots of advertisements for products I have no interest in purchasing. Still, I wonder how the algorithms work. Maybe I should start searching for things in other languages. Of course I don’t know how to use the keyboard on my computer to enter Japanese characters and I don’t know how to spell any words using other alphabets. I may have to become more educated, or at least more creative, to get the internet to throw me truly strange advertisements.
