John Battelle - head of Federated Media - has an interesting post on Silicone Alley Insider today discussing the necessary evolution of targeted advertising online. As online advertisers develop ever more sophisticated means of targeting their prospects - tracking your and my movements across the web, our physical location, past buying behavior, key word searches etc - to deliver their messages to the most "appropriate" audience, we have reached a point where it feels like we are being followed around the web. Targeting a message to a specific group of prospects is as old as marketing itself. But today's technology now allows marketers to see much more than what they could in the past - a zip code, a demorgraphic or a past purchase. They can now see who you talk to most on Face Book. What your most recent search was on Google. Where you last checked in on Four Square.
So Battelle rightly proposes these advertisers offer us the ability to politely say "no thanks, maybe later" - just as you might do when shopping at an actual store. The new marketing parading isn't to tell the customer that your products or services are awesome - but to have them say it to their friends. Help them have this conversation - give them the choice to opt out. Because they are saying "no" already - and if you give them a choice maybe next time it will be "yes".
Check out the full article at http://bit.ly/cAsttd
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