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Week 13 Part A: Online Advertising - Analysis of the Marketplace

I was pleasantly surprised when actively looking for ads on Facebook and IG. I usually try to ignore them! But as I was scrolling through my feed, I was actually given ads for things I'd like: photoshoots of my kids, tickets to Annie at the Civic Center, and a call for donations to a wildlife fund. They clearly targeted me well! 

I would say all used imagery effectively, showcasing beautiful photos of the subjects either as single images or carousel. The CTAs were either "book now" or "donate now." When I clicked, it went to things like Ticketmaster or the nonprofit's donation page.

On Instagram, it was pretty similar in what kinds of ads I got (probably because my IG and FB are linked).

On Twitter, I was targeted for things like quizzes on places I've been to or links to tabloid magazines. I found the ads on Twitter to be more annoying in their content.

I would say traditional advertising can be more effective depending on the audience's demographics and what you're advertising. For example, I think movie billboards are still effective (as are them being promoted by actors on social media). I don't read physical newspapers anymore so I'm not familiar with the ads in there as much. 

I may be the only person who still listens to top 40 on the radio, so I do listen to a lot of ads. I actually find a lot of them pretty effective since they're super short and I love a jingle! I can never get O'Reilly Autoparts' song out of my head! I'd say social ads work really well for clothing and, say, Christmas gift ideas. I don't usually click on ads, but I do feel the ones on social do a good job of targeting my interests. I think they're smart in that they also do short reels or videos of the shoes, clothes, etc so you can see what they look like. And videos are usually more engaging. Plus, on social, they know if you've already liked something so they can follow up and target you again.

I definitely feel like this can be intrusive. It's almost eerie sometimes how well they know you (or think they know what you want: for example, now that I'm over 40, I get ALLLL the Botox ads and anti-cellulite ads). So that feels kind of hurtful! Where are my ads for engaging novels to read instead??

It's interesting to think of in terms of what ads I would do for my audience. I think I would probably do a single image ad with a great photo of something really interesting in North County with a CTA like "Follow me" "Like my page" or something to that effect. I could also pay to boost a popular post of mine.

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