How To Make Personalized Ads Less Creepy

We all have heard the jokes about how our phones are listening. Our phones, and tablets, and watches, and computers, and smart speakers. Therefore, when we get super personalized ads it can feel a bit creepy. Like, how do they know my name? and I was literally just talking about this? So, how can we find the balance between personalized marketing and creepy personalization?

Why do we need personalized marketing in the first place?

In order to stand out in this digital world, brands need to communicate with their customers in a way that shows that the brand cares about the same things their customers do. This is especially true in social media. Social media can feel like customers have 1-on-1 relationships with the brand they follow. They can build relationships that feel personal.

Here’s a few ways to make personalized marketing effective and not jarring:

• Start with the information you have about your customers. It’s difficult to know what your customers want if you don’t know who they are. Look at your 1^st party data. What are your most common demographics? What are their interests? How would they most like to be communicated with?

• Use the tools available. Marketing automation platforms and CRMs can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to segmenting data. Many of them are designed to help create simple, personalized messages.

• Have a well thought out plan. Do you have a mapped-out customer journey? Knowing where in their journey your customers are makes a big difference in the types of personalization that will work for them. Think about nurturing. Pay attention to the details. Make sure that the little things that can be annoying such as, getting an abandoned cart email even though you’ve already come back to purchase it, are gone.Get rid of triggers that are connected to repurchasing products commonly only purchased once. (looking at you, toilet seat.)

• Know when to walk away. Keep your data clean. If someone has never opened an email it might be a good idea to take them off your list. Their data could skew your demographics and could make understanding what personalization your active customers need difficult.

What’s the creepiest personalized advertising you’ve ever seen?