So... this is pretty evil... but I thought of it a while ago and I'm not that bright, so I'm sure plenty of others have also thought of it.
How long until Google / Meta / whomever just starts having faster response times and higher resolution content for people who have clicked on an add in the past N minutes?
People who don't click on ads either (1) self-select away from the platform (or at least reduce their time on the platform), (2) begin to engage in quasi click-fraud, or else (3) consume fewer of the service's resources.
It seems like a pretty simple way to improve the ratio of consumed resources to ad revenue.
As an advertiser, I don't want them to incentivize people to click on ads, because then people will do it despite lack of interest in my product, and thus just add noise to my numbers. Unless it also leads to an increase in conversions (doubtful) that just makes the individual clicks worth that much less to me.
It simultaneously incentivizes clicking on ads, but also increases the concentration of ad-susceptible users on the platform. Depending on the correlation between a high propensity to click on ads and a high propensity to buy once on a website, such a change might actually increase the quality of clicks that you get.
How long until Google / Meta / whomever just starts having faster response times and higher resolution content for people who have clicked on an add in the past N minutes?
People who don't click on ads either (1) self-select away from the platform (or at least reduce their time on the platform), (2) begin to engage in quasi click-fraud, or else (3) consume fewer of the service's resources.
It seems like a pretty simple way to improve the ratio of consumed resources to ad revenue.