If you share a computer with someone you're trying to buy a surprise gift for this holiday season, you might want to clear out your browser activity.
The future of advertising is about strategic use of data, and that was on display this morning for me. As I checked up on Facebook, my wife's Christmas present showed up too. You can see below.
No, I didn't get her Tom Selleck, though I don't think she would complain. But rather, that lovely Merrill shoe just below Tom.
This is a great example of how sophisticated the collection and use of data has become. The shoe purchase was done Sunday night through my wife's Amazon account, using a different computer and different browser.
My digital profile is so well integrated with bits and pieces of data about me that some amazing algorithm at Amazon or Facebook (probably both) can track me across computers and platforms.
This truly is the future for marketing; personalize ad messages that are incredibly targeted to my wants and needs. There will still be a need for mass marketing, though it will also need to adapt and try to show the type of ROI that a marketer such as Amazon can receive through the targeted approach.
And never fear about my wife finding out about the gift. She told me the brand, style and size of the gift to buy for her at Christmas. The only surprise was where I would make the purchase. So the cat is out of the bag---I bought it through Amazon.
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