How do online adverts target people?

[johnnychips]

mods note - split from this thread.

Slightly OT, but do you know if YouTube ads are targeted to your viewing preferences, or the advertisers’ perceived perceptions of who is watching? So, for example, if I usually watch restoration channels and get many ads for tools and buildings, if I just randomly watched a cooking channel, would I get ads for healthy foods (advertisers’ idea of what I should be interested in) or still tools (my ‘profile’)?

 

[najaB]

Slightly OT, but do you know if YouTube ads are targeted to your viewing preferences, or the advertisers’ perceived perceptions of who is watching?

Yes. Very much so.

 

[Typhoon]

Yes. Very much so.

Too right.

Just today I searched for a review of a very dubious device that supposedly will heat my whole property for pennies provided I buy it within minutes. It was preceded by two adverts for similar devices and followed by a further one. Interestingly two featured seemingly identical people who invented this device, they could almost be twins; the difference being that one lived in Nottingham, the other lived in Germany (Munich?), but both were expelled from their school following the invention.

I look at a video clip of Martin Lewis, so I get an advert for Greg Secker encouraging me to sign up for 'training' in dealing with some financial objects I don't understand so I can have the same life-style as him which appears to be very close to what I regard as living hell.

 

[johnnychips]

If I buy something on Amazon like a toilet seat, next time I go on it is still trying to sell me toilet seats. I’m not that fat!