Mid-West Family Marketing Advertising Tip
DuckDuck Go, or No? Tips on Targeted Marketing
Kris Waterman, Mid-West Family Marketing
“They’re listening…watching…tracking!” So, who is this “they” people are talking about. Most likely it’s not someone looking for state secrets…it’s companies who want to sell you something!
You see it all the time; you’re scrolling on a website, minding your own business, perhaps just trying to catch the score from last night’s game, and an ad appears from a store you were just visiting yesterday. So weird! Or, how about this one; you’re in the market for a new car, so you search “Car Dealers near me.” Within the hour, you’re seeing ads online pop up all over for local dealers in the area. 5 years ago this was freaking people out!! Fast forward to 2022- we’re getting used to it. It’s not “Big Brother,” International Spies, or any other kind of evil conspiracy, it’s a digital advertising product called Targeted Display.
Search Engines use millions of tiny bots to chase you around and track your online behaviors and geographic location. Why do they do this? Because, like most businesses, they have bills to pay. Where do you suppose they get their revenue? You got it- from advertisers! They sell ad space on the internet, and as it’s evolved over time, they now have the capability to hyper-target an advertiser’s core demographic, based on several factors, such as their online search behaviors.
Privacy Protection Companies like, DuckDuck Go, position themselves as the heroes that block search engines (therefore advertisers) from collecting your browser data. Which raises a good question-is it possible that letting marketers see what you are interested in, or what you are shopping for, is a good thing? The truth is you’re going to get ads served to you either way, wouldn’t you rather they be ads that interest you? Ads about things you are shopping for?
There are pretty good arguments for both privacy and transparency of online activity. Fortunately, most platforms allow you opportunities to filter how much, if any, information you want to share. At the end of the day though for me, I’m not as interested in spilling any state secrets as I am in finding a great deal on a cute pair of shoes!
