Maybe Target Me, Just Don't Track Me

I want all the special offers.

Perhaps one of the lost and buried distinctions today in adtech and martech is that people may want great targeting, but not tracking.

The concept of being tracked, today, is inevitably linked to imagery of cold beige cameras following and recording your every move, of a pair of eyes peeking over a hedge and into your window. And although modern day tracking is both more innocent and nefarious than the neighbor with a glass to the ear at your wall, we've not been doing a very good job at dispelling these notions. And, we probably never will.

Advertising and marketing have been lazily sprinting towards the false idea that accuracy = relevance, or drawn out that perfection in tracking is equal to some sort of perfection in ability to show or sell the exact right 'thing' to someone at just the right time. It may be right, but it's not really what I want.

With Google's commitment to banish the bastardization of the cookie, they are absolutely ponying up to this central tenet as well:

Accuracy does not equal relevance.

Can you take a breath, wipe your sweaty cookie-pocalypse brow, and imagine a near-future where less accuracy will actually make your targeting better, because it will make the people you are targeting, happier?

Take a holistic look at how a strategy around the data that belongs to your customer can give you a stronger outlook for how to build stronger relationships with them. They will thank you for it, in the form of buying-in.