How Targeted Advertising Works

If no students have mentioned it, point out that there are people who know all those things: the companies who own digital apps, websites and devices. All of these are examples of personal information or personal data that companies collect.

Ask students if they know why companies collect so much personal information.

When students have discussed the question for a few minutes, have them navigate to the student chapter How Targeted Advertising Works. Read the questions with them and ask them to watch out for the answers while watching the video.

After the video, ask the following consolidation questions:

How do apps like social networks (Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) or video sites (YouTube, etc.) make money?

• By showing you ads.

How might knowing more about you help them make money?

• Point out that as well as targeting you with ads, apps use your data to target you with content that will make you spend more time using them.

Do targeted ads always work?

• They don’t always work well because the data they collect might be inaccurate (for instance, if you share a device or an account) or the guesses they make based on that data might be wrong.

What are some of the risks or downsides of targeted ads?

• you may be targeted based on characteristics that aren’t supposed to be used;
• if the profile of you is inaccurate, you might not see ads or other content that you’d be interested in seeing;
• people at vulnerable times in their lives, like when they’ve just been diagnosed with a serious disease, might be targeted by scam ads;
• the data collected about you might be used for other purposes for years afterwards.