expertSEM

As an online marketer, I’m frequently amazed at the technological innovations that ad distribution networks come up with. We call most of what they do “targeting”, but in short, they figure out information about you which marketers can then use to show more specific ads. There are two conflicting arguments about the ethics of this type of technology. On the one side, privacy advocates hold that this is an invasive misuse of user data and should not be engaged in. On the other side of things are marketers who defend the technology on the basis that it allows them to show you ads for products more likely to be of use to you than they could if everything was random.

Personally, I’m a little ways into both camps, but I thought it would be interesting to illustrate just how effective this technology has become. Here is a screenshot from when I was logging into PhotoBucket to manage some photos for this very blog.

You will notice the two prominent ads. The MSN ad was likely populated because I have PPC engines in my search history (AdWords, Yahoo, and even MSN – looks like they haven’t yet implemented negative matching). The Rich Dad, Poor Dad ad was delivered because for some strange reason, our Colorado office has a Atlanta IP Address. Both of these ads (assuming my IP Address was set up correctly) are incredibly targeted.

Once this technology migrates onto other mediums like radio and TV, the privacy concerns, as well as the frenzy of marketers, will increase dramatically. I don’t have an answer to the right or wrong of it, just don’t be surprised when this all comes to pass. I give it 4 years.