#19 Lost Episode: The Argh of Paid Traffic

Show Notes

I told you I’d be making it a point to keep up with this show again. Well, here’s another episode. This one is a bit of an archive one. I actually recorded it a year and a half ago before the podcast went dormant. I just never got around to editing it and making it fit for sharing with you. Now I have, so here you go!

The gist of the episode revolves around online advertising, otherwise known as paid traffic. A lot of creatives, both in the open source community and outside of it, are interested in getting their work in front of an audience that would appreciate it. Advertising online, particularly on social media (specifically Facebook), seems like it might be the best avenue for getting that kind of proper exposure. However, as someone with a high interest in privacy, security, and non-douchy ethics, I have a few misgivings about how some parts of online advertising are handled. That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about in this episode.

There’s a question in there for you, too. Even though the recording is over a year and a half old, I’m still curious about this topic and interested in your thoughts on the matter. So please do share.

2 Archived Comments

Klaatu, Nov 16, 2016

Ads are a clunky and lazy mimicry of human interaction. I love an ad when it leads me to something cool, but that mostly happens when that “ad” is a friend who mentions something to me because they think I might like it. The more human an ad, the better, and try as Facebook and Google might, they cannot divine my interests by scanning my web history or emails, nor anticipate when I’m in the mood to be sold to. Internet advertising is a numbers ame, and that’s de-humanizing.

Your advice to be genuine is the correct answer, and opt-in is the correct model.

Jason, Nov 16, 2016

Agreed. The anticipating mood thing is a big factor in this. And yeah, ads have always been a numbers game… a thing where single digit ROI is actually good because you’re throwing your mess out there in front of an audience of millions. That changed a little bit for a while there with better analytics and niche marketing… but the big data thing seems to be dragging that industry back in the direction of giant numbers again.

Thing is, I’m predisposed trust your opinion over that of a thousand people I don’t know… and I think (I hope) most other people are of a similar mindset. Granted, the cynic in me knows that can also be gamed and manipulated, but the optimist in me thinks that most people have pretty adequately-tuned bullshit detectors. I’m rooting for the optimist.

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