Question about targeted advertising

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@VinylTurnip

Today I was reading a WaPo article on my iPhone and noticed that the two ads on the page were for Sprouts and Petco. Yesterday I made purchases at… Sprouts and Petco.

I was wondering if it’s a coincidence or targeted ads, and if the latter, exactly what the chain of events was. I didn’t use my phone in any way (e.g. to have the receipt emailed to me), and I have location services turned off, so I can’t see how “they” would know I was physically inside a Sprouts and a Petco.

I did use an Amex to make both purchases, so I guess it’s possible the information originated from them. But if so, who do they hand it off to? What exactly are the procedural steps between me paying with Amex and the targeted ads showing up in my browser?

Do you have membership/discount cards with either? I know Petco has one and pushes it. Not familiar with Sprouts.

[VinylTurnip]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Do you have membership/discount cards with either? I know Petco has one and pushes it. Not familiar with Sprouts.

Petco yes, Sprouts no. So that could be it, at least partially. But apparently Amex does sell purchase data to marketers, so who knows.

[kayaker]

@Amateur_Barbarian

If someone was doing a presentation for a “big meeting” and was using any form of software that allowed third-party ads to be displayed, I’d start by wondering about their professionalism and probably end by finding someone else for the contract.

She was specifically showing a client’s page, which the agency had produced. The banner ad was an important part of what they were viewing.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@VinylTurnip

Petco yes, Sprouts no. So that could be it, at least partially. But apparently Amex does sell purchase data to marketers, so who knows.

Well, that’s the answer you’re looking for even though it’s what others (and you, IIRC) have dismissed in other threads.

The key takeaway is that Petco is not just collecting your information for its own use, nor is your grocery store, nor office supply, nor Home Depot, nor big box stores. Saying things like “Oh, wow, Petco knows I buy chicken-flavored cat treats, I’m shakin’ in my boots” is beyond ignorant. It’s the *aggregate *of this tracking - across stores, across payment methods, across time and geography, but most importantly across things that most consumers think of as boundaries in their life, when those boundaries no more limit data collection, analysis and use than do the walls of a rat maze.

So yes: someone aggregating data from Petco, possibly Sprouts and definitely Amex has collated your day’s perambulations with many other collected data points including your online and phone identities and decided to leave you little love notes to reinforce your bond with the participants. The only thing surprising here is that you find it surprising. The handful of us talking about this have not been blowing mystical woo up the Dope’s ass the last few years; we’ve been reporting what is common knowledge in retailing, marketing and big-data fields that has not yet had a headline story on CNN.

So does it bother you now, or is this endless surveillance of your every economic and personal activity, aggregated to target you for a Petco ad on a personal device, still of no concern to you or any other sensible person?
ETA: Boundaries. Let’s muse on boundaries for a moment - between work, family, school, professional organizations… and all the little personal things you do and buy and participate in that you might not want one or the other ‘bounded cell’ to know about. Suppose you log in tomorrow and there are no user names here… just your real identity, linked to Facebook and every other global pool. That’d be okay, right, because none of us here has anything to hide. Right? (Snark off: it’s that erosion of boundaries that is becoming the first casualty of marketing surveillance. Suppose one of your stops was a sex toy shop… and your SO saw the ad but was not the one you bought the toy for. Uncomfortable moment, brought to you by Google and Amex.)

[VinylTurnip]

@Amateur_Barbarian

So does it bother you now, or is this endless surveillance of your every economic and personal activity, aggregated to target you for a Petco ad on a personal device, still of no concern to you or any other sensible person?

I can’t speak on behalf of sensible people, but no, it doesn’t particularly bother me. Just curious about the path of hops from A to Z.

I don’t see customer reward programs as a benevolent gift from Big Business and I don’t know anyone who does. I refuse most, but participate in some, if I feel the compensation is worth it. Seeing an ad for Petco rather than Land Rover or Cialis isn’t dystopian enough to make me begin browsing listings for Unabomber shacks, but I understand that everyone has his own panic threshold.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Amateur_Barbarian

It is far from perfected, but it is equally distant from utter failure. What you’re judging is targeted marketing’s lowest and least effective level - not to put too fine a point on it, but no one has found a way to make web ads effective regardless of new or old school focus or targeting. They make Direct Mail look like a sure thing and it’s only their essentially costless nature (plus the hard sell from purveyors like Google and FaceBook) that keeps them in play.

Only a slim percentage of targeted ads within a narrow time window are more effective than plain old context ad placement. So the more invasive and controlling forms of targeting marketing at are being rushed into place, many of which are not nearly as obvious or benign as margin ads.

Could you elaborate on that?

I mean, I guess I’m with you on the bit about how “no one has found a way to make web ads effective regardless of new or old school focus or targeting”; and how you hasten to add that they’re so ineffective – even compared to direct mail – that “more invasive and controlling forms of targeting marketing” are being rushed into place; but what are the “more invasive and controlling forms” you’re referring to?