Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Yusuf Güzel on September 6, 2010 at 1:36pm

Facebook ads are targeted to users not pages. So if you see an ad about something that's because the advertiser targeted people like you. In this case, you're seeing that ad because probably you have "data mining" in your interests. If that company targets the keyword "mining" you will see that ad. OR the company mistakenly targeted "data mining".

Permalink Reply by Mirko Krivanek on September 6, 2010 at 1:58pm

But I have a profile of a data miner. From my profile, it's clear I have nothing to do with mining.

Permalink Reply by Yusuf Güzel on September 6, 2010 at 2:33pm

I get that. But i can't say why that happened unless i see that ad's targeting options. You can see more information about facebook ads on facebook help center

Permalink Reply by Mirko Krivanek on September 6, 2010 at 3:55pm

How do they target visitors who are not members (have no profile)?

Permalink Reply by Yusuf Güzel on September 19, 2010 at 5:08pm

I'm not sure but i think Facebook doesn't show ads to visitors.

Permalink Reply by Tom Wolfer on September 19, 2010 at 7:21pm

I am not sure whether this answers the question or not....or if this is what you mean by 'visitors'?.....

According to the following link, Facebook Ads can be targeted at individual users based on their location, age and interests:

http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?campaign_id=197633769587&p...

However, as with all variables, they are only as good as the people who properly complete them. Can anyone tell me if they know about what percentage of Facebook users actually complete the 'interests' section of their profile?

Or, do you mean that a Facebook Ad which is displayed to an individual user is not shown to another user who visits his or her page? Sorry if I missed the mark on this one.....

Permalink Reply by Yusuf Güzel on September 20, 2010 at 5:58am

By saying "visitors" i meant people who are not logged in.

About the "interests" section: Actually you don't need to complete it. For example when you like a musician's page it also appears in your "interests". So if you keep liking pages you will complete it.

Permalink Reply by Tom Wolfer on September 20, 2010 at 7:37am

Thanks for the clarification.

Permalink Reply by Tom Wolfer on September 6, 2010 at 6:21pm

Well, that brings to the surface the key weakness of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) in general, although, I do like AI for sure: AI can not look at something and comprehend all the various possibilities of a phrase, which, as you will know, may change depending on how it is placed in other text. Also, a human might use intuition to extract meaning from words on a page the way in which a computer may not. Logic drives computer interpretation, logic AND intuition forms the basis of human interpretation and decision-making. Maybe this gets to the heart of why 'mining uranium' and 'mining data' ads can get mixed up....you can have 'data' about uranium mining....so data is not a term exclusive to datamining.....even though it does show up in the search term....my thoughts, anyway....

One other point, I am sure that the search algorithms are placing emphasis on the word 'mining' in both search terms .....in fact, I would bet that only the keyword 'mining' was used for ad targeting purposes by the search marketing people....which is why web users interested in all types of mining, not just uranium mining, are targeted with the Cameco ad......