It’s no secret that there has been a paradigm shift in communication and advertising since the advent of the internet, particularly now that we have entered the social media era. This week’s article discusses some of the learning curves companies are facing with the emergence of new data and advertising outlets. It looked at four “use cases” of how marketers are using online data to improve the effectiveness of their advertising- audience optimization, channel optimization, advertising yield optimization and targeted media buying. In every case except for targeted media buying, each was labeled with a low maturity level but a high level of long term potential (TMB was labeled intermediate maturity). Companies are still catching up to the technology and branching away from older, more traditional practices of data use.
One of the matters still up for debate is the use of personally identifiable (PII) data and third party data. As a consumer, I was very happy to hear that PII data isn’t widely accepted. If a company wants to know what I am looking at on their site, that’s fine by me, but I’d prefer if they didn’t know my name and address. And really how useful is that anyway? Unless they are planning to follow up with a direct mail campaign (doubtful), then behavior analysis is going to be much more beneficial to a company.
What do you see in the future for online consumer data used in marketing strategy?
emilyjanedavis 
I think with this shift, we will most likely be watched even more closely and monitored by companies to see exactly what consumers look for while we shop. Online consumer data is very important but sometimes the process of obtaining it is not at its peak. Since it is a developing field, I think we as consumers must be patient with the results, even if we feel like our privacy is being hung on the line.
The more I sit in this class, the more I am 100% positive life will be like Minority Report. I wonder if that was the goal or not. We are going to be catalogued and detailed in such minute detail….
Amen. I think about that movie all the time now.
Hahaha. That’s actually awesome and sadly true.
We’ve referred to Minority Report so much this term, but it’s true. We’ve seen the possibility of real time advertising methods by what we gaze at on television, what we talk about online, what we purchase, so really it isn’t that far a leap to use all the data we are generating to predict with some accuracy what people will do or how they will act, before they even think it. Crazy, but more true every day.
It’s interesting the position we all sit in with this stuff. As a marketer, this is incredible useful information to have at your fingertips. As a person, it seems to scare us all to death. Where do you find the balance?
More and more I see ads on the sides of almost all the sites I visit and its always the exact item I just looked at on Sephora or on Hautelook. Its scary. Its like the internet knows what I did every moment I do it. Can’t say I like it but I do think that online consumer data will be used more and more than way to specifically target consumers with what they want at the time they want it. ‘Strike the iron while its hot’ type marketing.
Same. I think it’ll be finely tuned eventually because if companies continued to advertise only what you’ve already seen it might get a little annoying. Consumers always figure out what you’re doing and then they begin to distrust you. No matter what tactic or technique you use to increase sales it’s important to keep it creative and modified, I think consumers appreciate that.
I definitely agree that creativity helps. My targeted ads on Facebook have basically just exploded with wedding related items and never once have I clicked on them. They all are too generic- i.e. just because I’m getting married doesn’t mean I want your product.
With marketers having access to greater data and better understanding consumer behaviors and habits, we’ll soon have more targeted campaigns and ads. Ones that have a much better rate of conversion rate because marketers will understand their consumers so much better.