Sometimes I find myself daydreaming about the future. TV shows, movies and video games have all painted pictures of what the future should look like. I can picture flying cars, talking electronics or closets that pick out your outfits… that’s what everyone thinks of, right?
I recall growing up and watching The Jetson’s thinking to myself, “Someday, this will be reality.” Now that I’ve grown up, I realize that we truly are living in the future. We may not have flying cars yet, but, we do have talking electronics. Within advertising, the future is here. We now have the technology to track customers through their cell phones and that’s pretty advanced from thirty years ago. We can track social media and daily buying activities of customers through geo-targeting. Geo-targeting can benefit the consumer because advertisers can send you advertisements for items based on your location. For example, here is how geo-targeting can work: you have been searching a new recipe online and you go to the grocery store to get the items for the meal. As you walk into the grocery store, your cell phone IP address can pinpoint that you are at the grocery store. Advertisements for that ingredient you have been researching can now appear on your cell phone due to geo-targeting. The customer and client both benefit in this situation. You are reminded to grab the special spice for your recipe and the client has sold another one of their products. This is something affecting the world of advertising because we can now fully understand our customers’ needs and send them ads relevant to their location.
Have you ever been searching a new item on Google and then see an ad on Facebook? This is not the world being ironic. This is the future of tracking capability within advertising. One story that pops into my mind about tracking capability within advertising is the famous “Target Knew I Was Pregnant” story. TIME worded it perfectly: “Every time you buy toilet paper with a credit card, visit its website, fill out a survey or, really, interact with the retailer in any way, Target assigns this information to that ID”. Advertisers can use these IDs to send the perfect ad to their audience. In Target’s story they sent baby coupons to their customer by tracking their buying patterns. I will let you read the rest of the article to see how that story ended…
Here at Texas Creative, we can track your customers to see how often they visit a similar site, drive to a location, and more. With this data we can re-target ads specifically geared towards their behaviors. Now, we may not be able to tell you when your customers are having their next baby, but we can tell you if someone saw your ad and then visited your store. Next time you see an advertisement, I want you to ask yourself... How did they know that I needed this? Why am I being served this ad? We, at Texas Creative, are truly living in the future within Advertising. If you feel this new technology can benefit your company, head over to our website and send us a message, or read more blogs from our talented team.