ad spend well spent?

Oh yes, I must rent one of these tomorrow. Or next time I'm in Yorkshire.

I've been asking similar for a couple of years ...

 ... so I wish I'd written this - 5 questions to ask AI vendors before you buy anything. It is very good. I seriously doubt that any business that has bought-into ai asked these questions.

my ebay 'homepage'

OK, so it does say 'discover new sellers ...' but it also says '... that you will love'. Well, why would I love these when I have never, ever, bought anything like these products before. Indeed, one is for women's clothes.

Three issues to raise:

#1 It's  doing nothing for my user experience, 

#2 It's doing nothing for those folk who are paying for these ads to appear in front of me, and

#3 I've bought hundreds of products from ebay since 2003 - surely they could use that buying history to deliver ads for products I might have at least some interested in?

ad spend well spent?

Nearly all of the 'ad spend well spent?' examples on this blog come from X - so what do you think of X's ad for it's own ads?

really?

 This meant to be an advantage. It isn't.

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. no

Only West Ham fans would buy a West Ham shirt - why advertise it to anyone else? Particularly someone who's X profile tells the software which football team he supports [and it's not West Ham]. Ho hum.

how much?

No, seriously ... how much is this product?

permission to steal?

Apparently, this is the default setting on Instagram. Bad enough if it's your personal account. But what if it's your business account where your content is being made available for competitors to use?😏

mind the gaps

 It's a little thing, but it bugs me because it makes things messy, but ...

If you leave gaps in your URLs like this:

https://www.salsify.com/hubfs/2026/Salsify 2026 Consumer Research Executive Summary.pdf

when you copy it and paste it into another format that doesn't like spaces [eg word or gmail], it comes out like this ...   

https://www.salsify.com/hubfs/2026/Salsify%202026%20Consumer%20Research%20Executive%20Summary.pdf

nothing's new?

I have no problem with the advice offered in Avoid all-caps headlines - mainly because folk like me were saying pretty much the same over 20 years ago.

And that's why I have included it here ... to emphasise that spending an hour or so going through the older entries on this blog will be worth your while because a lot of the stuff is still relevant today.

The article also talks about seeking new markets and customers as if that’s a revolutionary digital concept - and not part of Marketing Strategy 101.

a bit late

I got this email from my broadband provider. Helpful, you might think - except that I have already activated the protection offered. Surely BT's various software talks to each other?

yes, it shows ...

 

be honest ...

If you was a business owner ... would you like your ads to appear on a platform that boasts that it lets users make AI images from public Instagram profile pics? Read the story on the BBC.

 

Postscript:

Shortly after this story broke came the news from the BBC …

"Meta has abruptly taken down a new feature that allowed people to use its artificial intelligence (AI) tool to make fake images from user content on Instagram."

To me, this says Meta spent an awful lot of money on a product they thought was OK without doing any consumer research. Good business practice?

ad spend well spent? [on a dubious product]

This one goes beyond the question of me being served and ad [on twitter/x] for a product I've no interest in - it seems to me that the product is a bit iffy. OK, so it is available on Amazon as some kind of health product - but numerous reliable sources say [something like] 

A doctor explains that using peptides without medical supervision is unsafe and discusses the associated risks. He outlines specific questions to ask a specialty provider who is offering peptides to reduce your risk of side effects or poor outcomes.

But let's get back to the advertising issue. On the ad it says in very small print 'for laboratory use only'. So, if it is really* for laboratory use only then the ad is targeted at folk who are using this stuff for laboratory research, wouldn't it be easy to get a list of those labs - there can't be that many - and contact them directly? 

Having said that, if the sellers are trying to find individuals who are willing to jeopardise their health by listening to influencers and take this stuff ... well maybe scattergun advertising makes sense?

* Or are those 4 words a legal get-out clause? Would labs really be interested in a retail price with discount for using crypto?

a few years overdue?

In days gone by I did many website 'audits' ... this is the sort of thing I would find.

excellent, well done

Bought some shoes. Didn't fit. Completed online form. No quibble. Produced label for return postage [which I had to print, the only negative]. No charge for return shipping. Email confirming receipt. Then this email. 

👏👏👏

why? you're wasting your ad money

I wanted some laces for my Adidas Samba Supers. I've worn these for around 45 years so I knew exactly what I wanted. I put into eBay search my specific requirements: "Black Laces Waxed - Round,140cm 2mm".

And this was the first sponsored [advert] return.

My guess is that the seller bid on [ie 'bought'] the key words "laces" and "round". True, I wanted round laces, but I wanted black, not brown; 2mm, not 2.5; 140cm not 75.

Furthermore, the next three sponsored listings were similar in their generic listings for laces. 

Ho hum.   

excellent email list cleansing practice

 

remember this?

It was reported that Meta spent over $70B on this total  failure. Maybe if they had asked some normal human beings if they thought it was a good idea and whether they would be happy to use it [no and no].

nice touch

I do like it when websites ask for your email address and then present an 'email friendly' keyboard 👏

Just an example of some useless data …

Yes, this is just some personal information from my iPad - which I ignored - but just consider how much data storage is used up with similarly useless stats about all aspects of business and marketing 🤔

Ad spend well spent?

Rather than show an ad that is irrelevant to the vast majority of folk who might see it, I would have thought the advertiser [I've included its description below the ad] could have contacted directly those organisations that might be interested in their offering 🤔 

I can write my own words, sentences and paragraphs thank you.

 

Nothing. Ever. 

And this is why ...

Who has ever used 'clothe' as a singular noun for clothes?

And there is no way that putting a comma after 'morning' makes any sense whatsoever. I despair. 

Back to basics?

As with the early Internet, it looks as though pornography is to be the primary source of income for the ai companies? 🤔

This makes sense to me

I would like a definition of 'discovering a new product' eg does it mean a product that I've never heard of before, or a new version or brand of something I was previously aware of, but nevertheless this data seems sensible. 

Ad spend well spent?

 I've include this not so much for the fact that it is of no interest to me - but take a look at the impressions ...

Remember when this was the next ‘big thing’?

 

buying justice?

Meta and google may have been found liable in Los Angeles and New Mexico for causing harm and failing to protect young people [subject to appeal, of course], but social media platforms seem to have found a way to ensure this doesn't happen elsewhere in the US: vast amounts of cash!

meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube settled a suit brought by the Kentucky schools district over social media addiction for a total of $27m - eight percent more than the school district's total annual budget. Even if such payments were extrapolated across all 1,300 districts bringing suits against big tech, this would amount to $35 billion. If Meta were liable for a third of that sum [as it was in the Kentucky case, this would equate to roughly one month of the company's operating income. It's easy to buy immunity with infinitely deep pockets.

Private Eye No.1677, June 2026.

influence?

I just watched a video on YouTube in which a bloke went around a number of campervans, giving a short review of each eg price, size, how many berths, shower etc. He offered no opinion other than comments such as 'the kitchen area is rather small' that is; statements of facts. 

In my eyes he was presenting the video ... but he was billed as an influencer.

He didn't influence me ... the facts did. 

Ho hum.

With whom do you agree ?

 

Apple no-entry

When Apple don't want to let you use your [Apple] iPhone to log in to your Apple account. My phone tells me it is running IoS 26.5.

Marketing is more than advertising

I could not access the actual report, so do not know the methodology, but these priorities all seem to focus on advertising - not marketing🤔

just a little accounts question ...

Which one of these do you think would be the best investment for your money?

it's not a bank account

OK, I get security, and I can live with having to access a code on my phone to get into a site, but they're usually four or five digits, not this ...

i agree

'Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ... exempted online media from responsibilities that every other medium is subject to. In essence it told platforms they could publish virtually anything they wanted without liability. It was unprecedented in the history of the nation.

The fiction that 230 created was that online platforms were not publishers (in fact, they are the largest publishers in the world.) But the fiction has allowed them to accumulate trillions of dollars by publishing lies, porn, deep fakes, hate material, violent material, libels, and mountains of despicable trash without any responsibility or liability.

The judge in Germany ruled that by using their AI systems to produce new content, Google was no longer protected by 230 and were clearly publishers. The court said that displaying third-party links is "search," but having  AI systems create and rewrite information creates new content, and that makes Google legally a publisher.'

Bob Hoffman in his Ad Contrarian Newsletter June 21, 2026.

I've been - happily - with Gmail from the very beginning [when it was Google mail], but getting these ads over my inbox every time I open it up is turning me against it.

 

according to ai ... it's shorter coming back

The result of two searches on Google, both asking how far it is from one place to another but each search being in a different direction.

it's funny 'cos it's true

 

Know your subject

 I find this frustrating. The folk writing this stuff should know that ‘marketing’ and ‘advertising’ are NOT the same thing.

aiding and abetting false advertising?

I was listening to a podcast sponsored by Shopify, and part of the introduction 'ad' the voice over said that - amongst many other things - the service "enhances product photography". I hope they just mean they improve the quality of pictures, because enhancing the product in a picture is illegal.

Just sayin' ...

Google's main income comes from advertising.

Amazon's main income comes from advertising.

and now ...

When Uber started 'Uber Advertising' the company went from a $1.8bn loss to a profit of $1.1bn.

why bother?

I'm not sure where to start with this email 'advert'. 

1 I'm of an age that my own father is long gone.

2 I'm not a father. Furthermore, it might be upsetting for a father who has lost a child - or a man who wanted, but couldn't have, a child.

3 The prices are in dollars. It is a US company, but I bought a product in pounds from the company's UK outlet.

4 The products being sold are firmly in the 'one-off' category of purchase. How many motorhomes does the average person have? Even if the answer is not 'none' - few [any?] has more than one, so why buy two reversing cameras?

do you agree?

This is from the U.S. ... are the numbers the same for your country?  One thing that is not in doubt is that 'mostly online' is the lowest in all categories.

it's funny 'cos it's true ...

 

a reminder ...

Microsoft's official terms and conditions say that 'Copilot is for entertainment purposes only' 

Are you using it for anything else? 

Is your boss insisting you use it at work?

Just sayin'.

and your job is ... ?

It would appear that [too?] many ANA members don't understand advertising. Just in case you're not aware, ANA stands for 'Association of National Advertisers'.

really?

All grok can offer is a list of generic problems that cars have. Google's ai once advised me that a common problem with my van was the spark plugs. The make/model of van I own has only diesel engines [in case you don't know, diesels don't have spark plugs].

oh dear 2 ...

 

Oh dear ...

 

the [mis] use of ai

At a recent social event, I ran into a gentleman who I had several times advised on digital marketing for his medium-sized business. Our conversation got round to AI – and he just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Twenty-odd years ago he had consulted me on how his organisation could best use email. I had advised him that as around 80% of his outgoing email was the same few messages that he should create templates, so that all staff sending ‘repeat’ emails [e.g. confirming delivery of goods and confirming receipt of an order] sent out emails in the same layout, same font and in the agreed ‘voice’ of the organisation. Each message was clear and concise, checked by his solicitors to ensure there would be no legal issues raised by addressees of the emails. As a result – even when employees changed – all outgoing messages remained consistent. 

The owner had then retired, and his son had taken over the business. Last year his son decided that all the templates could be scrapped and staff use AI for email generation. The result was – in the old man’s words – ‘utter chaos’. Every outgoing email was different, different style different voice, different colours … different everything.

My client knew nothing of this until news of a legal claim against the company arose because an outgoing email had not made clear what was required or what should happen. As a result, a customer lost [a lot] of money and was claiming that money – and expenses – back from the business.

I suggested he get someone in to advise his son on the use of artificial intelligence in the business.

it's funny 'cos it's true

 

is this a trustworthy list?

Apart from Wikipedia - and why not go direct to that website instead of using an LLM? - I'm not sure I would have a great deal of faith in content from these sites. Reddit in particular as much of it is simply folk's opinions.

it's an advantage of the internet

In the early days of the web when I was 'selling' the Internet to organizations, one of the major positives over printed media was that content could be changed in minutes rather than having to reprint leaflets/brochures/etc.

And yet 30 years later you can still find web pages [like this one] that are 13 years out of date. In this case, someone planning a visit to Cleethorpes could have no confidence that this car park still exists.  I'm pretty sure that if it does, the price will have gone up. Oh - and the link I've underlined doesn't work.

d2c … I don't think so

The headline of the article - in reality, it was an ad for a podcast interview - said "2 Bootstrapped D2C Brands, 1 CEO"*. However, when I read the content it was about a business that buys in products then sells them online. This is online retailing [e-commerce] IT IS NOT D2C. D2C is when a manufacturer/producer sells products direct to the end consumer ie without a third party being involved.

As far as I am concerned everyone that is involved in the business and article does not have knowledge of what marketing really is.

*Note: I'm not adding a link to the article as I don't think it's worth your time reading it.

excellent analogy

Seen on X, from @Emma_Turner75

"Making a microwave dinner is easy. You put it in the microwave, press a button & it’s done.  

Making a microwave dinner doesn’t teach you how to cook; you’re then reliant on microwave meals to eat.

Bypassing the hard thinking necessary for learning with AI use is just microwaving."

I agree completely ...

"In practice, however, technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise it, finance it, regulate it and use it".

Pope Leo, May 15, 2026.

The reference is to artificial intelligence.

so you've paid a subscription for an ai service ...

And then you get this ...

links - but to what?

Dark on light is easiest to read. That includes text links.

 

why search for something that isn't there?

I'm a fan of filters when searching a website for something to buy ... but listing what's out of stock?

someone [ or more likely, ai] seems to think i want to start a small war

 

a place of your own?

For years [about 30] I used to tell students that they should register their name as a domain name and set up their own web page. 

Now that artificial intelligence dominates search [apparently] and folk ignore search engines and social platforms when researching people [eg for job applications] that advice is more than ever relevant.

What could be better than your own CV that can be changed only by you? 

the same in Europe?

This research is from the USA where Amazon dominates e-commerce and so I would expect that figure to be lower over here. If they're honest [are there any who are? 😏] I think those folk selling AI would be  disappointed at these results.