I turned 25 a few months ago, and on checking my Facebook that morning, I was greeted with an unfamiliar sight. An ad which had once graced the right of my screen, which said something along the lines of “Hey there! 24 and single? There’s loads of hot girls just waiting for you…” had been replaced with a more sombre “25 and still single…?”

What had changed? Was it suddenly socially unacceptable for me to be single? Well no, I’d merely fallen into another demographic bucket.

Behavioural targeting is everywhere in various degrees. The ads shown during Coronation Street are based on the shows demographic. However there is an inherent logical flaw:

38 year old females watch Corrie. 38 year old females buy chocolate. Therefore, people who watch Corrie, buy chocolate.

Now I apologise to those of you who work in offline, and I do know that a bit more thought goes into it than that, but fundamentally, this is how offline ads get targeted. The online sector however is a different beast entirely. We browse, we communicate, we research and we shop, all though our internet browser, which handily records where we’ve been and what we’ve done. We also have the technology to trace backwards from a sale, and map out the complete customer journey, right back to their original search engine query.

Google have recently announced that they are delving into the world of behavioural targeting, and it has been met with trepidation from internet privacy groups, who are concerned about the amount of personal information which will be at Google’s disposal. To that, I say let Google have it, by all means, if it means that I stop getting Online Bingo adverts, and being ostracised for being 25 and single.

Advertising is everywhere, and I’d rather see relevant, targeted ads based on my interests and buying habits, than ones based on some marketing executive’s bright spark idea of the kind of demographic I fall into.

behavioural targeting · debate · technology · tracking · user experience