The Price of Free Google Report.
Proton analyzed over 54,000 demographic profiles using 2025 ad auction data to estimate what advertisers pay to reach different types of Americans. The range is much wider than you might expect.
The average American generates about $1,605 a year in advertising value. A 35- to 44-year-old man in Bozeman, MT, without children, using a desktop and making high-value corporate searches, generates an estimated $17,929.30. An 18- to 24-year-old father in Fort Smith, AR, using an Android phone and making low-value searches, generates $31.05.
That’s a 577x difference between two people using the same free service.
What defines advertising value to calculate this?
I dont buy anything online, Amazon or otherwise. And I dont engage with any ads unless by mistake. I suppose there is value in market research itself but nobody is making any sales revenue off somebody like me.
Everybody who thinks this is definitely having sales revenue made off of them. It needs to be restated forever in discussions like this that the metric for success in online advertising is not largely “oh shit, I could go for one of those right now”.
Those are what stick out in our mind because we remember them. I really did see an ad for Roblox as a kid and immediately go start playing. But sooooo much of advertising is subconscious to a point that we couldn’t possibly measure its true effect except by statistics.
Even beyond what we purchase: I’ve been bombarded with sponsorships for Raycons for years. Even with SponsorBlock on YouTube, sometimes they leak through. I will never buy a Raycon product. But I still occasionally talk about them, inadvertently advertising them, simply because they’re a good punching bag. I watched a whole video reviewing what pieces of shit Raycons are. Fuck it: I’m talking about Raycon right now. And that’s still among the worst-case scenarios for the advertiser. So much of advertising isn’t “I want this product now” or even “this product looks desirable”; it’s headspace.
The idea that advertisers’ psychological manipulation just doesn’t work on certain people needs to die and stay dead. If you saw it, it had an effect on you, and any effect is a better effect than nothing. If you realize an advertisement worked on you, the advertisement has failed part of its job.
What about me? On the rare occasion I see an advertisement, I have no idea what I’m even seeing. I saw a commercial a few days ago when my adblock failed.
A woman running through a public park. A man hidden in bushes, in all black watching her with binoculars. More shots of her running. He slips down into the bushes. Screen goes black, and then plain white text. “He’s watching”.
WHAT THE HELL AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO BUY???
If you’re a woman, sexy jogging gear. If you’re a man, binoculars and tick repellent. If you’re nonbinary, donate to your local parks department to fund sidewalks and bushes.
It’s just that simple.
My assumption would be it was an ad for a VPN or some sort of internet privacy service. An ad got through when it normally doesn’t is what leads me to believe that.
Bill Hicks always had the best bit about this.
I’m guilty of exactly this. I buy almost nothing online. But I recently got into weight lifting. I wanted good at home adjustable dumbbells. I have a fully stocked gym that I use four times a week, but when I miss a day, I want to at least do something.
Fast forward to me refusing to pay $1,000 for them. I am the target demographic described in the high income no kids male part and low and behold, a beautiful kind Lemming pointed out I can get the exact pair I had been looking for on Facebook marketplace cheaper (and new) on a website I’d never heard of.
Watching reviews, breakdowns, demos, all were imprinting in my mind that I want this particular set. Am I sucker? Maybe. Did I spend $250 on a product I use often and increases my overall quality of life? Definitely.
Ever since a nephew of Freud introduced concepts of Psychology into the Marketing world back in the mid XX century that advertising has shift mainly to work via psychological effects.
Perfect examples are perfume TV adverts (all about associating a perfume with sex and feeling sexy) and Car TV adverts (generally about associating a car with freedom, success and sometimes power).
So yeah, most of that shit is meant to just reside in your subconscious and subtly prod you towards a certain product or service at the right time, even if only because a certain brand name feels “familiar” or even “trustworthy” when you have to make a choice about a kind of product or service you don’t usually buy.
This sounds like something the advertising world would want you to believe. It’s in their interest to keep the public thinking that advertising works. It’s good for their bottom line if people believe that even if you don’t act on an ad immediately it’s something that eventually nudges you.
Maybe that’s not true. Maybe, in fact, sometimes advertising is a net negative because you’re bombarded so often with an ad that you come to resent the company pushing it. I don’t know what Raycon is, but based on what you’ve said I’m also not interested in ever giving them money. So, the worst case for the advertiser is that not only do their ads reduce sales from people who are reached by those ads, they also reduce sales in anybody those people talk to.
The idea that advertisers’ psychological manipulation just works on people needs to die and stay dead. If you saw it, it had an effect on you, and if that effect is negative then it’s obviously worse than nothing.
For every sane individual like yourself there’s 10 others that happily say “I kept getting these ads for this thing on Instagram so I decided to buy it to see if it’s any good.”
“i got manipulated” is how I hear it
Not that I think I’m not susceptible. I am. That’s why I hate ads and do everything I can to avoid them.
I lean into it intentionally sometimes. Some of those things sponsor the things I like, and I want those things to be keep happening, so I’ll buy some Pagoda egg rolls that I never would have touched otherwise.
That doesn’t work with the really intrusive ads though.
How do you search for a restaurant or a barber when you’re in a city you’ve never been before? Or how do you rent a car on an airport in another country? You ask for a telephone book?
No OP, but I have never done any of those things in your example.
Bullshit. Are you my 93 year old grandmother?
have you ever made a planned purchase? if so, it’s almost imposible you were not influence by marketing even if it only was to narrow your choices to what’s available in your market
marketing is EVERYWHERE… there is no escaping it unfortunately
I guess you can always buy the cheapest off-brand item without previous search…
sure but you cannot do that for every purchase in your life… and even the off-brands advertise and have exclusivity agreements for distribution
I typically find those things on the map. Or in specialized apps. Don’t see how it’s ad driven revenue.
Also who is changing barbers every time or moving between cities every few weeks? It’s like once a year thing for most people, isn’t it?
my grandfather goes to the nearest building and asks. if they don’t know he moves to the next person
I’ve just had an epiphany (or maybe a half-baked showerthought) reading this thread.
All marketers are trying to sell people stuff, but if you think about it, what’s the one thing in common that they’re all trying to sell, and that they’re presumably best at?
Their own services.
So who knows if this “advertising value” has any relationship with reality, or if it’s just inflated bullshit marketers make up to sell themselves.
How much someone is willing to spend to put an ad in front of you.