Don Marti

Thu 13 Feb 2014 07:33:45 AM PST

Fun with Facebook ads?

I use dlvr.it to share blog posts and links with Facebook, through the magic of RSS. Every once in a while I go to the Facebook site to read comments on something that dlvr.it gatewayed there for me, but Facebook is not one of the places I check habitually (see How can I break the Facebook habit).

Most of the ads that I was getting to start with were for free-to-play NSFW games, so I changed my profile to "female". Jackpot! All of a sudden I started getting much more professional ads, including IT products and services for big companies, and training classes for online marketing skills (yes, including a Facebook ad for a class on how to advertise on Facebook). What I guess happened is that the more business-focused advertisers put in gender-neutral bids, and while I was "male" on the site, they got outbid by the game companies specifically targeting male users.

(Dudes, I highly recommend going "female" on Facebook if you haven't already, especially if you might be embarrased about people seeing too much décolletage in the ads when they walk by. So there's your personal infotainment tip for today.)

But what did I do? I had fixed a problem, so I broke it some more. I went ahead and stayed female, but increased my age to 88. Big mistake.

Now, I look at the ads, and I'm getting the bottom-feeders of the bottom-feeders. The above ad goes to a page that has nothing to do with a celebrity scandal. It's some kind of laser surgery racket. Oh well, the "dynamic corporate IT professional" ads that I had been getting as a younger woman were good while they lasted. I don't know if I'm now getting the low bidders who didn't want to pay more to reach younger users, or if some of these advertisers are targeting me.

Bob Hoffman points out that marketing ignores people over 50 but that's just legit marketing, from the kind of places that hire people like Bob Hoffman. All those ad spots that the big brands don't buy are still getting snapped up, and the result is pretty icky.