Meta: How does the advertisement generator work?
So I am curious how the ad generators work. I love the Moe Sport Shops ads. And I get how there are links to things I have searched . . . I just ordered a Nikon camera lens, so I get that I will have ads from Adorama (the store in NYC where I ordered the lens).
However, there are enough annoying ads that come up which I have absolutely no interest in. I have absolutely no interest in dating Arab women, Ukrainian women, Russian women, Asian women, etc., etc. I've never signed up for a dating site, I've never gone to a dating site, I may be just as curious, as the next person, but I'm never sharing any CC or ID info with any dating website. Never even thought of it. Won't do it. I just don't get it.
And I'm sure the Mad Hatter and a host of other posters will make snarky comments, but trust me, there's no way this should be in my profile in the least.
At least I've never seen the annoying "shocking" pictures or the like at mgoblog. There's that going for the site.
Changing topics, we still haven't heard a peep about when there will be mgoblog changes. Upgrades to the server, to the board, accurate links, site design. Was there something up about this while I was on vacation over the kid's Spring Break?
This type of thing belongs to the field of Machine Learning, which exists somewhere in the intersection of statistics and computer science (and a bunch of other disciplines as well).
Have you ever learned Bayes' Theorem in a probability or statistics course? It says that if you know the probability of 'A', the probability of 'B', and the probability of 'A and B' you can then compute the probability of 'A, given B', i.e. the probability of 'A' happening when you are certain that 'B' has already happened.
One of the simplest methods in Machine Learning is called a Naive Bayes classifier. Let's say that you visit Amazon to do some online shopping, and let's assume also that Amazon is going to use a Naive Bayes classifier to make product recommendations (in reallity they are probably using some more advanced model). So let's say that you look at the book 'Bo' by Schembechler himself and Mitch Albom. Let event 'A' be 'customer views Bo book' and let event 'B' be 'customer purchases "Endzone" by John U Bacon'. Amazon has in its database the % of customers who looked at the 'Bo' book (A), the % of customers that purchased 'Endzone' (B), and the % of customers that both looked at 'Bo' and purchased 'Endzone' (A and B). Therefore they can use Bayes' Theorem to compute the probability that a customer who has viewed 'Bo' will ultimately purchase 'Endzone' (A, given B). They can compute this probability for many different products based on what you have viewed, and ultimately show you product recommendation that the model says will generate the highest average profit.
So it may be the case that you have never shopped for a foreign bride. But if the model says that customers who both like Moe's Sport Shop and Nikon camera lenses are likely to click on an ad for Ukrainian brides (and remember that the advertising service is selling clicks to ad buyers) then that's an ad that you might be shown.
April 19th, 2016 at 10:33 PM ^
All I know is that - for the moment - the ads on my view of the page relate to flooring and electronics, so it has been taking a peek at some of my recent history as well. Yesterday, it was veterinary sites because I was looking into treating the ears of one of my cats (this is not nearly as intriguing as expressing anal glands, of course). The ads know me well though.
I currently have Arizona State Business School ads on mine, which I find mildly amusing/ironic. The in-context randomness one I ever got was ads for rec league softball out here in San Diego, but I recognize that's because I'd signed up for a league a few weeks ago and that triggered the ad. Still seems incongruous on a Michigan blog.
On a related note, do you know what activity on Amazon qualifies MGoBlog for a cut? Is it going though MGoBlog's link to Amazon to search for an item? Or is it putting the item in the shopping cart? Or is it making the actual purchase? I ask because I frequently will go to Amazon to search for an item and put it in my shopping cart, but then not make the actual purchase until later.
I believe the cut disappears after 24 hours, so leaving it in your cart for a long time might be a bad idea (if you want the site to get a portion).
i'm not going to ask what that is, nor am i even going to remotely attempt to google it either. katey-bar-the-door on the ads that would show up then.
April 19th, 2016 at 10:14 PM ^
April 19th, 2016 at 10:34 PM ^
April 19th, 2016 at 10:08 PM ^
April 19th, 2016 at 10:19 PM ^
I think part of the problem is I don't shop enough on the internet. I can try ad block. And I can do more searches for things that don't bug me. And maybe the mail order bride thing will disappear.
I hate ads, but I like website owners getting paid if they do a good job. I have a plugin that just modifies the CSS and adds "display:none; to the CSS class or HTML attribute. Best of both worlds, I don't see the ads and the website owner still gets paid.
try something like
http://gizmodo.com/how-online-ads-work-1530627881
there are roughly 1 billion places to read about online ads and how they work
April 20th, 2016 at 12:01 PM ^
I just need to delete cookies. Thanks! If I'm going to be shown things I can't buy, I'd rather it be a cute lady than say a new car...
Do a little shopping online for stuff you're into and that'll be the ads.
There are three levels to the two ad positions where we run network ads:
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Self-sold. You wont' see many in the offseason, but you should be getting your local alumni association club, a pizza place near you, a car dealership if you're in the detroit area, or if you're in ann arbor one of several small local friends of ours. And at one point Jimmy John's, which was ludicrously successful and I'm mad they didn't re-up. If you ever want to direct advertise on here I can literally sell as little as $2.00 of ads and target just your zip code, or whatever. During the season you'll see more self-sold.
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Same network as NDNation, HawkeyeNation, HuskerNation. This used to be a smaller midwest network but the guy in charge is a MAJOR Nebraska fan and a former coach. Then he picked up the "Nation" group and has been rebuilding this for sports. But our site is so damn old we lose out on some of his bigger ad programs. But I bet a bunch of you got Batman v. Superman ads last month from him. And BTN ads. And Coke Zero.
- Google Ads. This is the bulk of what regular readers will see--about 1 in 10 readers is a member of the board and 1 in 1,000 is a regular board reader. If you are reading this right now you are probably in that 1 in a 1,000, and therefore you've blown past the higher end ads. Google employs half the world to follow around the other half of the world and see what you like. But they make their job easier by guessing based on things like "this reader at this site is probably a male 25 to 45 who's had more college than most and makes 100k or above household income. Their algorithms then decide that rich intelligent men like butts more than the typical crap that's advertised online, and therefore they can charge the advertiser who is selling butts more to feed some of their ad to our site.
Also they notice the word "Butt" appears here often and they aren't able to understand that's a person.