The fine line between targeting customers and creeping them out

by Patrick Hechinger
November 24, 2015
When it comes to e-commerce, no one wants to feel like a sheep. Being targeted and herded to new products invokes a Big Brother aura that leaves a bad taste with the average consumer. 
 
So how do you walk the fine-line between targeting customers and creeping them out?
 
Burbank-based is attempting to tackle the customer intelligence and engagement industry with a strategic and mindful approach. 
 
Created in 2005 by a group of former, CitySearch and ValueClick engineers, Connectivity began as a directory business similar to Yelp. But when CEO Matt Booth arrived, he and founder Emad Fanous decided to take their data in a different direction.
 
“Underneath all the directory assets they had a very large and unique data asset about what consumers do, where they go and what they like,” Booth said. “We started to build other data assets around it like customer profiles and that led into the business we have today — a customer insights product that includes look-alike targeting.”
 
The company now helps businesses in North America understand their best customer profiles and find new ways of targeting similar people. Booth said 80 percent of businesses in the U.S. don’t have a list of their customers. Connectivity’s engineers have pooled together customer and business information in order to build in-depth profiles for small and medium sized companies. 
 
But with great customer knowledge comes great responsibility.
 
Booth admitted that despite their pursuit of customer information and trends, there comes a point when targeting becomes overwhelming: 
 
“I’d say the vast majority of times it's overused. Not everyone needs to see the ad 50,000 times. My favorite example — I bought something on an e-commerce site and then they showed me ads for the same thing that I bought for the next 8 months. You have to be thoughtful and it has to be used in moderation. The idea of shoving things constantly in front of consumers and expecting them to react positively, those days are gone.”
 
 
“Give them an offer and something they can react to but it can’t be creepy and it can’t be totally out of the blue. It has to be something they’ve raised their hand for and said I’m interested in this. There's a difference between calling a business to inquire about something and then being shown ads, and walking by a business with your mobile phone and seeing random ads — those are the ones that people are really going to rebel against.”

Jobs at Connectivity

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