The answer to that question is simple: of course they are.
As the head of an agency that actually uses data to help our clients, I get asked about this quite a bit. It isn’t as nefarious as you may think, and it doesn’t have to be scary.
It also isn’t new. Advertisers have been targeting people for a long time. We just care more now because they finally have the tools to do it really well.
Take streaming television. You’re watching a show on a service that runs commercials and, for a few seconds, something spins in the corner of the screen. The service knows how much commercial time it needs to fill, but it may not know exactly which ads it will show you until that moment.
That’s where the magic happens.
The system looks at who is watching and what audiences you fit into. Maybe you fall into the broad category of pet owner. But your activity shows something more specific: you’ve bought dog food, searched for dog toys and visited a veterinary office. You are not just a pet owner. You are much more likely to be a dog owner.
At that point, an advertiser like Chewy may be a better match for you than a company focused on cats. The system analyzes those signals and decides which advertiser has the strongest opportunity to reach you before serving the ad.
That’s also why you may see the same ads repeatedly. Chewy is not necessarily advertising to everyone watching the same show. It is trying to reach people whose behavior suggests they are potential customers.
And it isn’t limited to television. You and your neighbor can watch the same show or visit the same website and see completely different ads.
In the past, targeting was much broader. Luxury car brands might advertise during professional tennis because they assumed that audience had a certain income or lifestyle. Beer brands advertised during football because they believed those viewers were more likely to buy beer.
But plenty of people watching had no interest in those products. Advertisers were still paying to reach them.
Today, targeting can use signals like what you search for, where you shop, websites you visit, purchases you make and places your phone has been.
For business owners, that means less wasted advertising.
Instead of paying to reach everyone watching a program, businesses can focus more of their budget on people who are more likely to become customers.
A campaign can even start with online ads and then show television ads specifically to people who visited the company’s website. This is commonly called programmatic advertising.
The result is a more efficient use of an advertising budget because fewer dollars are spent reaching people who were never likely to buy in the first place.
Even on television.
Any content, resident submissions, guest columns, advertisements, and advertorials are not necessarily endorsed by or represent the views of Best Version Media LLC (BVM) or any municipality, homeowners associations, businesses, or organizations that this publication serves. BVM is not responsible for the reliability, suitability, or timeliness of any content submitted, inclusive of materials generated or composed through artificial intelligence (AI). All content submitted is done so at the sole discretion of the submitting party.
