Internet advertising has taken the lead in the marketing industry as far as companies reaching their consumers. The traditional way of advertising, contextual advertising, which consists of an advertising system that scans through web pages the consumer is viewing, taking keywords from that website and placing ads, or pop up ads on that page to get the users attention to a particular product. This form of advertising has come with its form of problems and controversies. The techniques of third-party hypelinking software that downloads itself on consumer computers and interacts with the browsers catching keywords typed in and linking them to webpage advertisement, or as we better know it, internet spam. These tactics were considered invasive according to polling done, highly objectionable by majority of the internet surfing population. Sales numbers based on this type of advertising were not impressive either as you would imagine, privacy invasion was met with great resistance by users. According to SearchEngineWatch.com behavioral targeting or behavioral advertising:
“refers to advertising that is targeted to a specific individual based on that user's previous surfing behavior. This is quite different from the more common targeting method of displaying ads matched to the specific content of an individual page or to all users in general”
Studies are shown that advertising through behavioral patterns of users returns a higher conversion to sales rate that the conventional contextual advertisement. With the new implementation of the “Advertising Option Icon,” consumers are given more control and understanding of what information they would like shared and what they can keep private. Companies can put this icon on their website and consumers are prompted to read the rules and regulations and have the option to opt out of future ads targeted at them.
The question is, will anyone actually take the time to read through all the documentation presented? I know for myself, just as most of my peers, companies have been very successful at making the “fine print” irrelevant. Television ads, internet rules and agreement of websites we visit, products we download and purchase, it all seems like a a bunch of irrelevant stuff. We give reputable companies the benefit of the doubt that visiting their website and purchasing their product means that they have our best interest at heart and that is not the case. Social media sites have come under scrutiny as well for how they share user information, and some such as Facebook have taken steps to allow user more privacy control over their content. But does it work? On a regular day, while I browse through the internet, I am looking for a specific thing, and once I find it I am engaged in whatever it is, I don’t think to look for advertising opt out buttons, or cookie control buttons, and unless prompted by my PC to block pop up ads, I just ignore them. So will this new measure really have any effect on my day to day surfing life? Will I be more aware of what behavioral patterns I am sharing with companies, I’m very much inclined to say no it won’t.
Till then...toodles.
Azee, I agree with you that most of the time we don't read the fine print and consumers will probably have no idea what this icon provides; however, I think that by advertising products that deal directly with the consumer, is beneficial for booth the company and the consumer. No matter what, advertisements will always be shown online and I personally prefer seeing an ad of an item that interest me instead of something irrelevant that I am never going to buy.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that while the tactics being used are "invasive" it does not keep us, as consumers, from purchasing more of the of the products sold when using these tactics. The NAI reported "6.8 percent of people who click on behaviorally targeted ads turn into buyers, versus 2.8 percent of those who click on non-targeted ads". So, it is safe to say that it does work. As consumers we need to come together and decide whether or not we truly like the fact that we are constantly being followed, and act on what we want.
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