Ads that stalk: Personalized retargeting exposed!
Are you being stalked online by products you previously looked at?
I recently looked at an external hard drive on Buy.com but navigated away from the site without making a purchase. A short while later, I was browsing a completely unrelated website when I spotted a Buy.com ad for the very same hard drive that I’d been looking at earlier together with a couple of others:
I thought nothing of it. But then I encountered the ad again on another completely unrelated site. And a little while later, there it was yet again on another website. Yikes! I realized that I was being stalked! Then I discovered that I was not alone. There was a chap who was being pestered by pants. And a woman who was being shadowed by shoes.
It appears that the process is known as personalized retargeting – from Wikipedia:
“Personalized Retargeting, a related practice, differs from Behavioral Retargeting as it allows an advertiser to display a banner created on-the-fly for a particular consumer based on their specific browsing behavior. For example, if a consumer visits an advertiser’s website and browses products A, B and C – they will then be retargeted with a display banner featuring the exact products A, B and C that they previously viewed.”
While some people may consider personalized retargeting to be big brotherish and somewhat creepy, it’s actually powered by cookies – a relatively innocuous technology that was invented by Netscape. Cookies are small text files that are used by pretty much every major website for a wide range of purposes – from remembering preferences and shopping cart contents to enabling marketers to collect statistical information.
What do you think about personalized retargeting? Do the implications of such surveillance concern you? Is it an annoyance or simply a way for businesses to make their advertising more relevant? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!
Hi Rhonda,
Glad to hear you did some research when you noticed the ads! I’m Kathryn- marketing associate at AdRoll.com, and I’ve been excited about the retargeting discussions that have ensued since the NY Times article on Sunday. With all the new technology being developed to bring consumers ads about products they are actually interested in, it’s imperative that these shoppers be informed. Here at AdRoll.com, we aren’t in the business of creeping consumers out. We really want small to medium-sized businesses to get the most reach for their marketing bucks and for the right people to be served those ads. We instill guidelines on how often ads can be served to shoppers so we don’t hound those leisurely browsing. We actually wrote on our blog a while back about just this kind of thing. Check it out! http://bit.ly/a4nLTI We’d love to hear what everyone has to say. Retargeting is such a wonderful opportunity for businesses and consumers alike. Thanks for your thoughts. Keep on rollin’!
I have not encountered this annoyance, yet. My browsers are configured not to accept cookies from websites not listed. I do not accept pop-ups unless I am sure of the site and the purpose.
I go on all kind of websites to see prices and reviews and have never seen the same things popping up else where so I guess my settings are working. Once in a while a popup happens but it is always crap and stupid stuff, but it is still rare.
@Katheryn, Without Prejudice.
No it is not imperative that your company inform shoppers via pop up pestering. Nor are there any enforceable guidelines that advertisers must abide by other wise they are kicked out of the technology. Your guidelines are toothless; I have read them they are of good value only to those who are willing to comply. Complicity in this case means that they are sensitive to the feelings of consumers and to our privacy concerns.
What you propagate is intrusive and without merit. As a consumer I do inform friends and myself if need be, to whatever service or consumer good that I/we might wish to purchase. Sometimes I research products just out of simple interest without any desire to purchase that service or item.
I have polled a good deal of my friends and families who unanimously hate pop up pestering from unsolicited and biased product “advice.” We are quite capable of informing ourselves and making our own informed opinions.
If your company was concerned there would be an easy, opt out for browsers of consumer sites. One opt out button not one per site or pop up. Are the revenues too alluring to say no?
I am a major geek, love technologies but I am a much greater fan of privacy and being able to opt out of anything I do not want to be subjected to. If I were to show up at place of work, then the grocery store, then the restaurant, then the hairdressers and then your house as you prepared diner (I am a fantastic cook btw…lol), you would be calling the police screaming STALKER!! Get the point?
@Katherine
Without Prejudice
Stalking is stalking is stalking… you may call it personalized re-targeting, but that doen’t changes what it is!
So far my pop-up blocker is working just fine, but if at any time you manage to work your way around it, you need to know that I value my privacy far more than I value any product you may be advertising…
In other words, if necessary, I would be willing to pay more to purchase from a non-invasive company; and if push came to shove, I would rather do without a particular item than purchase from a company that stalked me!
Easy Steps to fix this
Set your browser to clear cookies
“Cookies” are the main thing to Ad Stalking, the ads place cookie on your system and keep track of you.
You will see many sites say “you have recently browsed this item, maybe you are interested in this item” which pulls item from same category.
It remembers what item you browsed only cause it saved cookie on your computer.
Clear cookies OFTEN
Even when your making payments online or doing online banking, always clear your cookies so the temporary internet files do not cache it.
@ Katherine
I’m with Gail and Mr Tucker on the stalking front. I also hate advertizing of any sort, I’ve stopped being polite to telemarketers, I have pretty good setting on my PCs since I don’t remember seeing any of the symptons listed herein, I have never clicked an ad I don’t notice them unless they pop up which rarely happens, the only anoying ads are the “TV” Type that proceed the odd video I watch on line, and I get a cup of tea during those like I do during the ones on the small amount of comercial TV I do watch..
Stangely I love funniest commercial shows and while I laugh I have trouble remembering what the commercial was about…
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