You’re being watched!
As the winter months come in I felt it time to look for a new jacket, for warmth and to keep out the rain. If only that was true, what actually happened is that I saw a Barbour jacket while browsing the Liberty website (please don’t think I’m some fashionista, it was work related I promise : ), the jacket was nice, had everything I needed but I had to seek approval from the wife, it was after-all £300… the dream ended there. I wasn’t so into the jacket that I was happy to fork out 300 quid so I left the sale there.
The following day I landed on another site while searching for inspiration, I was then exposed to that very same jacket within a banner ad, I then clicked to another site where I was again presented with the same banner creative and product.
I had indeed been targeted by a behavioural re-targeting banner. Initially I felt a little annoyed, strange even that somebody really wanted to sell me a product that I really didn’t want any more. It kind of reminded me of a real life scenario whilst in Tunisia years back. I asked a guy in a shop if I could try on a ring I liked… bad idea, as soon as he’d got an incline that I wasn’t going to buy the sodding ring he followed heckling and shouting, determined to make the sale!
So I’d once again been followed by the rejected salesman. But this time I realised it wasn’t that bad, sure someone had been using my data but at least I was being presented with a product I was or had been interested in and not some fucking banking banner for a ISA.
I’m not really sure what all the fuss is about, I rather like the idea that I get to choose banners on my page in this indirect fashion.
