Thanks for putting this on Meta so we can condense a lot of the information here.

###I'm wondering if we're going to see ads tailored to particular sites in the future.

I'm as glad as anyone that we can keep Joel caffeinated, and since the 2016 announcement and the 2018 update on the ads program, I was looking forward to this move a little, because there had been two major reassurances:

1. Ads would have a very strict, excessively ludicrous quality control barrier, as Stack Overflow has stood by in the past.
2. Ads would be topical, if possible, for some or all sites.

Point 1 has been talked about recently by a lot of people and no doubt will see further discussion, so I won't kvetch about that. I'll talk about Point 2, i.e. topicality. There was a lot of emphasis a couple years on back on why network-wide ads would be beneficial for a lot of users; namely, that entire groups of non-programmers could be drawn in by ads related to the topics they're hear to ask and answer questions about. To use Tim's continued example of Seasoned Advice, there's a whole bunch of cooks in that kitchen who might be interested in cutlery-related advertisements.

From what we've seen so far, there has been no tailoring of ad scope to each site. Arguably the opposite. Seasoned Advice saw some stuff that doesn't look like a spatula (kudos to y'all for addressing that quickly, though). All the ads seem generic; moreover, I'm getting the impression that SE doesn't have any quality or scope control over what ads we see - besides dealing with problematic ads after the fact and perhaps having a word with the party responsible. Which would imply that it's not getting better from here.

So here's my question: Are we ever going to see topical ads? We've got over 170 sites - I've given up counting by now - and it would of course be absolutely absurd to expect you guys to somehow figure out a whole bunch of ludicrously on-topic ads for each one. I'd be amazed if you pulled that off. But at the same time . . . not all of those sites are exactly prime ad targets, as had been acknowledged a couple years earlier. Maybe it would be possible to tailor ad topics if only a smaller subset of sites saw ads (it's easier to filter ads for 20 sites rather than 170+, right)? But from what you're saying, every site will get these ads eventually, at least in this phase of things.

As Tim said back in 2018,

However, you're the experts on these topics and we're very likely going to listen to you.

 

. . .

 

Ads aren't just an opportunity to sell stuff, they're an opportunity to really show people that we understand a given topic.

It kinda seems like that idea has been given up on, which is a bit disappointing, because I thought it could be an awesome way to forge connections with the network sites . . . but I'd like to know if it's truly the case that it won't be happening. Of course, if you don't know yet, that's also fine. But . . . this was one of the positive things I thought might come out of this, and I'm not seeing heads nor tails of it.

Thanks for putting this on Meta so we can condense a lot of the information here.

I'm wondering if we're going to see ads tailored to particular sites in the future.

I'm as glad as anyone that we can keep Joel caffeinated, and since the 2016 announcement and the 2018 update on the ads program, I was looking forward to this move a little, because there had been two major reassurances:

1. Ads would have a very strict, excessively ludicrous quality control barrier, as Stack Overflow has stood by in the past.
2. Ads would be topical, if possible, for some or all sites.

Point 1 has been talked about recently by a lot of people and no doubt will see further discussion, so I won't kvetch about that. I'll talk about Point 2, i.e. topicality. There was a lot of emphasis a couple years on back on why network-wide ads would be beneficial for a lot of users; namely, that entire groups of non-programmers could be drawn in by ads related to the topics they're hear to ask and answer questions about. To use Tim's continued example of Seasoned Advice, there's a whole bunch of cooks in that kitchen who might be interested in cutlery-related advertisements.

From what we've seen so far, there has been no tailoring of ad scope to each site. Arguably the opposite. Seasoned Advice saw some stuff that doesn't look like a spatula (kudos to y'all for addressing that quickly, though). All the ads seem generic; moreover, I'm getting the impression that SE doesn't have any quality or scope control over what ads we see - besides dealing with problematic ads after the fact and perhaps having a word with the party responsible. Which would imply that it's not getting better from here.

So here's my question: Are we ever going to see topical ads? We've got over 170 sites - I've given up counting by now - and it would of course be absolutely absurd to expect you guys to somehow figure out a whole bunch of ludicrously on-topic ads for each one. I'd be amazed if you pulled that off. But at the same time . . . not all of those sites are exactly prime ad targets, as had been acknowledged a couple years earlier. Maybe it would be possible to tailor ad topics if only a smaller subset of sites saw ads (it's easier to filter ads for 20 sites rather than 170+, right)? But from what you're saying, every site will get these ads eventually, at least in this phase of things.

As Tim said back in 2018,

However, you're the experts on these topics and we're very likely going to listen to you.

. . .

Ads aren't just an opportunity to sell stuff, they're an opportunity to really show people that we understand a given topic.

It kinda seems like that idea has been given up on, which is a bit disappointing, because I thought it could be an awesome way to forge connections with the network sites . . . but I'd like to know if it's truly the case that it won't be happening. Of course, if you don't know yet, that's also fine. But . . . this was one of the positive things I thought might come out of this, and I'm not seeing heads nor tails of it.