Behavioral Targeting: The Good and The Bad

As Behavioral Targeting takes off, consumers can expect advertisements and marketing ploys to be uniquely catered to them. Behavioral targeting enables companies to directly appeal to the consumer, with hopes of ‘building a relationship’. Considering that the Internet has some limitations as far as knowing what your consumers want, behavioral targeting helps reveal that. Also with behavioral targeting, you are directly appealing to your consumer. The consumer will be less likely to delete it if it specifically relates to them.

However, there is concern for the consumer’s rights’ that is are they protected? The main issue is how the information on the consumer is obtained. Gaining information without the consumer’s knowledge is an ethical dilemma and possibly a legality issue. This has been a hot debate. Several organizations use fine print disclaimers to relinquish any blame or responsibility. Unfortunately the majority of the population doesn’t read the fine print, so in essence that’s the consumer’s responsibility to know what their signing off on.

Through the use of cookies, adware, and various tracking programs, marketers gain an incredible amount of insight into the daily lives of their consumers. With this new technology it could benefit both the consumer and industry by customizing advertising, which helps eliminate unwanted information for the consumer and helps the industry by gaining a better perception of their consumers.