What was the last time you clicked on an ad?
What was the last time you clicked on an ad?
I think as a child I got viruses from one of the ads, you know, the ones would put on the side of the site. We had to call in a guy, to clean parents' computer. I felt really guilty and never touched those ads again.
So Google's and Meta's main business are ads. And recently I felt confused. Do people click on ads? Don't these ads feel phishy to them?
I have a slight amount of knowledge about it, having been heavily involved in watching ad campaigns' performance from the advertiser's side from time to time.
Personally I believe that there's a ton of internet advertising that does effectively nothing except take money from companies with too much of it, and subsidize internet services so they can keep providing things to users for free (which, honestly, isn't the worst thing in the world.)
My specific observations which came with a decent amount of data behind them, are:
- Google search ads, and similar ads that are being shown to people right at the instant they are looking for the thing the ad is for, people click on and sometimes buy the thing.
- Ads that are randomly shown to people, even tracking-pixel ads for people who have already visited your web site or whatever, do basically nothing in terms of directly driving conversions. They may have some positive impact on brand recognition and building legitimacy of the brand, but personally I'm a little skeptical that it's worth it.
- Pretty much the only clicks you get from randomly-displayed ads -- especially from dopamine-machine networks like Facebook -- are people accidentally clicking on them who immediately navigate back away. Like, 99% for random web site ads, and 99.9% for dopamine-machine ads.
- Genuine social media presence is free and is effective.
I was there in the late 90s, when hitting the wrong website (or a good one on a bad day) would spawn oodles of pop-ups and pop-unders. And any attempt to close even one of these windows would spawn 10 more. Rinse and repeat until these ads brought not only your browser to a grinding halt, but also your entire operating system, forcing a hard restart of your entire computer.
The moment an adblocking add-in was made for Phoenix (later Firefox), I installed it and never looked back.
I feel for those websites who rely on ad revenue to exist, but that well was thoroughly poisoned for me long before you (likely) ever existed. I will never permit a browser to exist on any of my systems without an ad-blocker of some kind, and I will configure all of my clients to have the same protections in place.
Accidentally? Because a lot of ads are designed to trick you into clicking on them.
I have a pihole that blocks most of them from loading, but sometimes I accidentally click on one.
The last time I intentionally clicked on an ad, when I was fired from my job and I kept seeing google ads because we used gmail for everything back then, and I knew it drove the CEO crazy that he was paying per clickthrough. So I would click on it and bounce around the website all the way to the cart, and then abandon the cart with thousands of dollars of stuff in it.
I'm pretty sure he could see my google account associated with the activity.
Banner ads, not for a long long time, at least not intentionally.
Last week I needed parts for my snowblower, and Amazon was not helpful finding what I needed, so I googled the info I had. A competitor’s ad appeared as the first result. I was skeptical as hell as I clicked on it - my experience has always been similar to yours - but they had a comprehensive, easy-to-use database of parts, with diagrams, part numbers, in-stock notes, and cost all on the same page. No hacky website, just the right information presented well. Wound up giving them the business.
I guess not everyone is a rabid, cheating, lying SOB. Just many people. Lol
The first and last time I clicked an ad was roughly 20 years ago. I was a child, playing RuneScape and orgazing a clan, and I wanted to post our clan events on a website.
An ad for one.com (a web host, called b-one back then) was shown above the RuneScape client. I thought about it and decided to click it. I landed on the website and made an account, played around a bit, and asked my mom if she'd pay for it. In that moment, not only did I become a paying customer, I became a web developer. The latter of which I still am to this day.
Being exposed to such life-altering artifacts on the daily seems like a terrible idea, so I've blocked ads ever since.
On my devices I don't see ads because PiHole and uBlock... But this week while using someone else's device, and I saw an Ad, I tried to click the 'x' button, but accidentally clicked the ad because they make the button tiny.
Screw ads.
System-wide ad blocking on all devices that support it.
Permanently Deleted
I rarely click on them. If I like what I see I'll manually Google the product since I don't trust the link they give me.
Oh yeah, all the time. Not for anything I need though. Just for private jets, million dollar pieces of industrial mining equipment, and centrifuges.
Ubiquitous surveillance means constant opportunities to provide wrong data.
What’s an ad?
I've clicked retargeting ads a few times, if they're offering me an abandoned cart coupon ("finish your order at our store and save 10%"). I've worked in ad tech in the past, and retargeting ads (ads that show products you've previously viewed or expressed an interest in) have extremely high clickthrough rates.
I saw an ad in Instagram reels around a week ago for a Chinese company that makes big LED signs like you see at the front of stores like Safeway or Best Buy or whatever. Not interested in the product, but I was intrigued because the guy in the ad was Chinese but had a Texan accent. Turns out he uses a different accent in each of his ad videos. That was amusing. I did click the ad to see the quality of the product.
I barely ever encounter ads on desktop.
On mobile I've clicked on ads for (legitimate looking) games before. Half the time it's an immediate uninstall, but once in a while I find something good
Ublock origin.
I have ads unblocked on a site that I like to support, and that serves relevant ads that are generally clean.
Generally, they're ads for equipment from manufacturers I'm actually interested in, so I will occasionally click on them.I don’t think I’ve ever intentionally clicked an ad, with the very very infrequent exception of product results that come up in searches. It’s literally never been to buy the product, though. It’s to see if I’m interested in doing more shopping around. Ads are never for the best priced or highest quality product, but if it’s something you’ve never looked into before they can be informative, and it’s easy to access.
But since I started running a pihole years ago, I don’t even do that, because it gets blocked when I click it. Rightly so, it was a bad strategy anyway.
It's not about clicks, it's about attribution. That is also why they all want to track you. It's not just about targeting ads. If you buy something in a webshop and the advertiser can show that you saw a (related) ad for that somewhere in the last X days/weeks then the sale is attributed to the advertiser and they get paid a fee. That is why they want to track anything and everything. The more data they collect, the higher the chance they can show attribution. No clicks required.
Maybe about a year ago. It was an actual offer from a site I knew already and was too lazy to go and check it manually. Never making that mistake again as for months afterwards every ad I got was from this site. I now use adblock on my phone as well so I don't see anything but I bet I'd still get ads from that site if I didn't.
I don't recall ever doing so.
There was a warez site that politely asked to click their ads to support them, which I did. This was around the year 2000, adblocking nor user tracking were really a thing.
Probably one of the “throw the shoe at GWB” or “snipe OBL” sidebar ads in the early 00’s
Never
I go out of my way not to do so. Whenever I search for some specific items and see "Sponsored," I'll scroll down until I get the same listing without the ad link.
Only accident ever. I hate ads. Always have. I go out of my way to not buy things over advertised to me.
I actually bought a cheap laser mouse off a banner ad once back when you could still find mice with balls in them. I think it was like 15 bucks, arrived no problem, and my credit card didn't get stolen, so it was a win I guess?
Might've been the last time I clicked an ad, and it was 20+ years ago. Oh wait no my news app a few years ago had a top made out of gold being sold for about $150 as an executive desk toy. I checked it out because I was sure it would link to a new satire site like the onion. Turns out it was real and my news app thought I was really into gold tops for a few weeks.
Been a really long time I have actually clicked on an actual ad, unless we're including closing the pop up thing every time you boot up Steam. I couldn't remember the last ad I actually clicked on if we're not including the Steam thing.
Bought a sweater I saw in an ad. Like a 70s style one, like it was the sweater that inspired both Tron and the Twister board game. Hasn’t arrived yet but I’m hopeful it isn’t complete trash.
I've clicked on some IG ads before. They have good targeted ads, to be honest. I think I clicked on a game that gives you a mechanical representation of electrical concepts called Spintronics.
Last year I clicked on an ad for a video game. The process was so clunky that I was better off Googling it and taking the link to its Steam page.
I dont think I've ever click on an ad on purpose. I've clicked for mistake I closed right away. Never ever bought anything from an ad.
Years. Hell, it's months since I've even seen one ... and that was just because sometimes when you start your browser a page will load before the adblocker is loaded.
Advertisements aren't necessarily obtrusive or a bad thing. There are several content creators, Webstores, mailing lists, etc. that I'm subscribed to and whose ads I look forward to because I don't use social media but still want to be aware of new releases. I clicked on an ad from HYDRA + FOTOGRAFÍA that I got in my inbox earlier today
For the Samsung galaxy s3. What a disappointment that became! Never again.
There were some nicely packed boobs. I like boobs.
Crossellers, sure. But actual ads, I cannot remember ever having voluntarily clicked on one. Not once in my entire >40 years of life.
Intentionally? Probably when ads for Wheel of Time Season 2 started showing up and I clicked through to see if they had a release date.
Unintentionally through misclick? Probably yesterday
Unintentionally through deception? Seconds ago
I just don't like if I forget to go incognito VPN and shop to buy something, then buy something, so I'm done shopping for it, but then see it non stop in adds for the next 2 months.
I ALREADY BOUGHT A DAMNED PAIR OF WORK BOOTS!
Fatty McFuckface (aka: Clive Palmer) was running non stop ads in Australia during the last election. Every ad I clicked through cost him a fraction of a cent.
I probably turned ad block off long enough to click on at least one ... I think
A couple weeks ago when I bought a new wallet. Which I’m very pleased with so far.
I scroll past the sponsored Google result links to get to the non-sponsored one that was "identical". I haven't intentionally clicked an ad in a while. Generally if I want to click an ad I just Google what I need to not need to. I use a pi-hole so generally I don't see them.
Every couple weeks, while playing solitaire on my phone.
It's never intentional. Fuck mobile ads
I might click on some sponsored results in Google search if it was the result I was looking for either way.
On purpose? I vaguely remember doing so once several years ago, but I don't remember what the ad was for.
On desktop I'm at no risk of accidentally clicking on ads because I have uBlock Origin, but on mobile, more specifically on the YouTube app, I'll occasionally accidentally tap an ad or "promoted" video.
I click on Instagram ads probably a couple times a week. Otherwise, not sure.
Sometimes I click on ads for mobile games if I think they actually look fun. They just redirect straight into the app store so there's not much chance of anything bad happening
I’ve clicked on ads (primarily Instagram actually) because it is an ad that is for a product or service I was actually looking for but didn’t have the time/knowledge to actually go searching for it
Been a long time. The last time I got affected was via a Shockwave/Flash banner ad for the movie "Moulin Rouge," which dates this story. It's not so much that I clicked on it, but it was on a forum banner ad. I didn't get a virus as much as I got "VOULEZ-VOUS COUCHER AVEC MOI!!" screaming from my speakers from out of nowhere with no warning.
While the head of our Canadian operations was in my office.
Who, of course, spoke French.
Thankfully, she just teased me about it and I didn't get fired.
Been using an ad blocker ever since.
I accidentally clicked in a ad in the past week. Does it count?
I sometimes click on Instagram-Ads because some of them are so unhinged that I have to find out what they are about?
Quite often:
- To support the site the ad is placed on
- To cost money to the ad's sponsor if I don't like them
I’ve been on the internet since before it had ads and have never once intentionally clicked on one. These days I always have at least one ad blocker running, so I never see them.
Recently had one for a world of Warcraft private server which seemed cool
Willingly, maybe 4 years ago.
Never since I installed a program that prevents me from doing so by accident.
I don't remember ever clicking an ad. I probably have, but I don't remember ever doing it.
I pay for as much content as I can, to avoid that vomit.