Are All Online Marketers Creeps, or Just Me?

A while back at a company budget meeting the executive team and I were discussing new types of campaigns we wanted to test. I brought up retargeting as a technique we needed to adopt. I have been a fan of retargeting for some time and this was not the first time I had brought it up. I wanted to do a full presentation to bring the leadership up to speed on the process and how it would work for our firm specifically. I was surprised by the responses I got. "It's scary" was one of the first, followed by "I don't like that and don't want to be invading people's privacy" was another. The one that hit me the most, for whatever reason, was the "that's creepy and people that do it are creeps." Was I a creep? I'm the one that suggested it, advocated for it, and ultimately unsuccessfully pitched it to executive leadership. So I must be a creep?

This got me thinking about online privacy in general and it was brought up again recently with the Facebook controversy over altering user's feeds and recording its effect on their online behavior. This really isn't that different from digital marketing in many ways. We insert something into a person's online world, through sponsored posts or a banner ad and then we see if and how this affects their behavior. Granted today it is often done in a very transparent way and paid content is often clearly labeled as such, but we are still tracking the behavior.

Retargeted ads only take it to the next logical step of showing a specific message to someone based on their previous behavior. In our case, I simply wanted to offer a special promotional message to any visitors that opted to not buy on their first visit or invite those that did to return for an additional purchase. I felt many of our visitors would appreciate a special offer as they obviously had some interest in our product. However, the reaction of my bosses made me wonder. (I certainly didn't have the heart to tell them how our other targeted advertising works) When I went to lunch later that day to my favorite sub shop I was talking with the girl that was making my sub. She asked what I did and I gave a short summary of what my team and I do. "Oh so you're the guy looking at all my browsing history," she said with a grin. I had made no mention of this but she just assumed I was tracking her on some level in order to advertise to her directly. She not only didn't seem to mind, she thought it was funny. "Sorry about all the nasty stuff I look at", she said. I didn't ask her to elaborate, but the point I took away from it was that she was unconcerned with her activities being tracked at a surface (impersonal) level.

So I went back with a sense of vindication and not feeling like I was a creep after all and that I was justified in my push to use any and all available methods to hock my wares. I pulled together lots of data on retargeting and how/why it works, along with case studies, and an ROI projection. I emailed the leadership to please just review the attached information to gain a better understanding of what I was proposing. The answer came quickly, "We will not have any further discussion of this method of advertising." Accepting my defeat I went back to work and over the next few weeks things progressed along well. Then last week at another leadership meeting I got a question, "How can we convert some of the people that visit our site and don't purchase?" I politely put my hand up and facepalmed myself.

I hope others in similar positions can get a chuckle out of my frustration and please feel free to share your own story below. It'll help me feel better to know I'm not alone.