I am being stalked by ads. They follow me around the internet. I thought it was my imagination, but now I know better. I have been marked for retargeting. There is a good chance you’ve been marked, too.
Do you keep seeing the same ad crop up over and over no matter where you go? Does it show you something you had actually looked at and paused to consider on another website? Do you ever stop and wonder, given the way internet ads rotate so quickly, why you keep seeing the same one? There’s a reason. You are a remarketing target.
Don’t panic, it isn’t painful or malicious, but you might want to rein in your impulse buying tendencies. Those ads are following you because you have already showed an interest in them. Like stray puppies, they want to be picked up and taken home. When you visit a website you are given an electronic cookie that works like a doggy biscuit. Some electronic cookies are designed by retargeting companies so that whenever you visit a webpage that has their content on it, you will see the happily wagging tail of whatever ad they’re promoting that corresponds to the most current doggie cookie in your browser.
Really, it is a pretty ingenious selling method. The consumer is repeatedly exposed to products, services and merchandise of personal interest, and the advertisers are assured that interested peoples are seeing their ads. Now next time you see that ad at three sites in a row, you’ll know why it’s following you. And, if you’ve got something you want to sell, you know what kind of internet ad to purchase.
