I keep getting car ads. Yes, I know the digital ad budgets in the automotive category have been on an upswing lately, but the car ads I'm getting are in places where I don't normally see car ads. I scratch my head because I know there's some sort of behavioral targeting at work here, and I'm not really sure how I'm being targeted.
My wife's lease on her Volvo is up this summer. I was reminded of that fact when direct mail offers for financing started showing up in my mailbox a couple months ago. And if the direct mailers know about it, odds are the ad networks know about it, too, maybe through a partnership with one of the big three credit bureaus.
Or maybe I'm getting car ads because someone stuck a pixel in those eBay Autos emails I subscribed to. Could be that I visited Dodge's website a couple months ago to configure a Ram 3500. There are probably half a dozen behaviors I can think of that I've been displaying lately in my online surfing behavior that might indicate to a car company that I'm in market.
And I don't much care. It's not a big deal if the ads I see flip from untargeted ads for mobile phones, airline fare sales, or broadband connections to something I'm actually interested in, like cars. It's kind of interesting to think about how car companies are targeting me, but it's not really a big deal.
It might be a big deal if I were single, visited a jewelry ecommerce site to look at engagement rings, and had the surprise spoiled by an influx of targeted ads. Or if I had a specific medical condition and researched it online, only to have condition-specific drug ads show up as I'm checking the sports scores.
It's not just that some consumers think ad targeting is creepy. There are certain situations in which retargeting is inappropriate. An agency media planner who previously worked on an auto account might rotate onto a pharmaceutical account and fail to pick up on that.
Retargeting needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. Too often, media recommendations assume that what's OK for one product or category is OK for another. The key consideration is the consumer perception of appropriateness.
This can get schizophrenic. According to a 2008 Truste study, three quarters of web users would rather see more relevant ads, but more than half of them don't want to receive ads that are targeted via web behavior.
Maybe the answer is that certain behaviors ought to be considered private, and others are fair game. Consider that before you apply retargeting tactics to your next media recommendation.
Tom Hespos is the chairman and president of Underscore Marketing and blogs at Hespos.com.
On Twitter? Follow Tom at @THespos1 or @_MarketingLLC. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.
