Savings can come to us in all sorts of ways. Sometimes we find them in a flyer. Sometimes we hear about them from a friend. Sometimes we even find them right here on SmartCanucks. But what about when it’s the other way around? How do you feel about when specific advertising deals finds you?
Targeted advertising has been around — especially online — for a long time now. It’s what drives the GoogleAds you see and the spam emails you recieve. So much of the advertising you see online is based on where you surf and what you search that it would make your head spin. I’d never really given it much thought before, and then I recieved this email;
Dear Amazon.ca Customer,
We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch by Colin Quinn have also purchased I Hate Your Guts by Jim Norton. For this reason, you might like to know that I Hate Your Guts is now available. You can order yours at a savings of 37% by following the link below.
Based on a book purchase that I’d made a year ago, Amazon.ca felt the need to reach out and let me know about savings on a recently released book that I might be interested in. Despite my amusement at Amazon’s inability to credit the correct author (Jim Norton authored both books, Colin Quinn simply wrote the forward to the first) I couldn’t help but feel conflicted on the whole notion.
On the one hand it’s nice to have a reminder about a book I definitely want. If I somehow hadn’t been aware of it’s existence I would’ve been tickled pink to get this email. The 37% off only sweetens the deal. On the other hand, if they keep this much info about me for advertising, how much other info about me is really floating around out there for more illicit means? I’m the last person to give into that whole “don’t give any of your information online” paranoia, but I just don’t know how I feel about having my info tracked to encourage my shopping habits.
What say you?
Exactly why I keep a separate e-mail for follow up junk from online purchases.
Quick and easy to delete.
OB
What Say I?
I also get interesting recommendations from Amazon. I purchased a CD through them. Now I get other CD recommendations even though I am not a big CD buyer. I recently got a Pre-release notification for a Natasha Bedingfield CD. As you said in your article, I was overjoyed to hear about more content from a favorite artist of mine.
In addition to recomendations, purchases of other members bring to my attention other artists I might like. If there are tracks available to listen to, I can even sample the other music.
Heck, if I am really interested, I can usually hear entire tracks posted on YouTube.
My options as a consumer are greatly enhanced by Amazon, but more so by the entire internet. I am (indirectly) in contact with millions of other CONSUMERS which is the new part.
SmartCanucks.ca is a great example of this. I find out about deals from all the users out there who are savers. They LOVE finding (and sharing) deals. They have their own interests. I ignore the pampers offers and look into what fits MY life. I know for certain that if I encounter a great deal on something that is important to me, I will share it with this group. Distributing the work makes finding deals (and making the best of them) very easy.
I also share the good deals I see here with the people who might be interested, further spreading the word about this great site. As a consequence the user base grows.
Consumers are garnishing incredible power in the marketplace; broadcasting is simply not good enough anymore. Companies will increasingly have to be aware that their customers are much more informed about products and will go to much greater lengths to get what the want, at the price they want.
Let market forces prevail!
I actually get these mailings from them once a week, I do believe when you sign up you click to recieve mailings.
Well, don’t you keep track of us here too? It’s sort of the same thing….
😉