My ad experience has changed dramatically after I leaned into multiple browser personas.
In personal persona, I hate ads with passion and do everything to get rid of them (browser extensions, premium membership, etc). I value my personal time and the ads are totally useless.
In work persona, I suddenly have found ads are actually useful. Often find myself choosing to spend 30 seconds watching a YouTube ad because it is relevant to topics I need to be aware of as a CTO. It's clear my daily browsing history influences the ads I am seeing, and I see useful information. Been looking into SIEM tools lately, and via an ad I was just made aware of some data center appliances for security. I clicked to their website and browsed a while to learn what was available. When you have some real challenges to solve and the targeting is on point, ads can be a great news feed.
Clearly segmenting my browser history into one persona where I am actively looking for solutions vs my personal persona where I want to be left alone helped the feeds target me.
Still, surreal feeling to intentionally choose to watch an ad...
In work persona, I suddenly have found ads are actually useful. Often find myself choosing to spend 30 seconds watching a YouTube ad because it is relevant to topics I need to be aware of as a CTO. It's clear my daily browsing history influences the ads I am seeing, and I see useful information. Been looking into SIEM tools lately, and via an ad I was just made aware of some data center appliances for security. I clicked to their website and browsed a while to learn what was available. When you have some real challenges to solve and the targeting is on point, ads can be a great news feed.
Clearly segmenting my browser history into one persona where I am actively looking for solutions vs my personal persona where I want to be left alone helped the feeds target me.
Still, surreal feeling to intentionally choose to watch an ad...