Do you sometimes feel ads on the internet are just plain creepy.
One person said to me recently my computer knows how I think. When I visit sites on the internet three are ads for products I'm interested in.
Now here's the creepy part. The person hasn't realised they've probably performed a search and now ads for the products start appearing across multiple sites.
For example yesterday I was searching for CR2032 batteries using Google. I went to quite a few sites of which one was Kogan. Whilst on the Kogan site I scrolled down and viewed many items. One items was a pop-up Marquee for $169, which I thought was an interesting price. However I have no current or real need for it so moved on.
Then today I went into Facebook and the following ad appeared in the right column.
I felt that was pretty creepy. I visit a site using one service (Google search) and then I start seeing ads whilst using another service (Facebook).
Also notice how they're not showing me the item I was interested in, but upselling to a more expensive item. I didn't even remember the price of the previous item so it could be easy for people to be upsold.
Personally I think being followed around the internet and having my actions tracked like this is creepy. However others seem to think it is wonderful that the internet knows about them and shows them what interests them.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
Helping locals find businesses without tracking them.
PS. I believe the technique used by the ad networks is called remarketing. The theory is if you showed interest in a product that you may later buy that product if repeatedly shown the item. The approach fails when it becomes obvious as in this case and also when you buy the product or service and then keep getting nagged which again makes it obvious this is some form of automated marketing.
One person said to me recently my computer knows how I think. When I visit sites on the internet three are ads for products I'm interested in.
Now here's the creepy part. The person hasn't realised they've probably performed a search and now ads for the products start appearing across multiple sites.
For example yesterday I was searching for CR2032 batteries using Google. I went to quite a few sites of which one was Kogan. Whilst on the Kogan site I scrolled down and viewed many items. One items was a pop-up Marquee for $169, which I thought was an interesting price. However I have no current or real need for it so moved on.
Then today I went into Facebook and the following ad appeared in the right column.
I felt that was pretty creepy. I visit a site using one service (Google search) and then I start seeing ads whilst using another service (Facebook).
Also notice how they're not showing me the item I was interested in, but upselling to a more expensive item. I didn't even remember the price of the previous item so it could be easy for people to be upsold.
Personally I think being followed around the internet and having my actions tracked like this is creepy. However others seem to think it is wonderful that the internet knows about them and shows them what interests them.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au
Helping locals find businesses without tracking them.
PS. I believe the technique used by the ad networks is called remarketing. The theory is if you showed interest in a product that you may later buy that product if repeatedly shown the item. The approach fails when it becomes obvious as in this case and also when you buy the product or service and then keep getting nagged which again makes it obvious this is some form of automated marketing.
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