Offline Consumer Targeting

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Internet Marketing and Privacy

For as long as there have been consumers, marketers have gathered information about consumers in order to better target a marketing pitch. With the advent of Internet advertising in the 1990s, marketers gained another avenue to track consumer behavior to send targeted marketing offers. This guide provides an overview of the best Web resources for learning about off-line and online consumer targeting practices. It educates you about the data that marketing companies may be gathering about you, and offers advice on how you may be able to control the data that is gathered about you.

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Offline Consumer Targeting

For how long have offline marketers have been collecting data on consumers ? The Consumer Data Industry Association was formed more than a century ago. And marketers have been assembling electronic databases to track consumer interests since the 1960s. Nowadays, a many of your commercial transactions are recorded in a database somewhere. Your phone company keeps track of every telephone call you make, and uses your calling activity to market new calling plans and services to you. Credit card companies keep track of your charging activity, and use it to decide what marketing inserts to stuff into your monthly bill envelope. Hundreds of direct marketing companies gather information about your purchases, subscriptions, sweepstakes entries, and every other form you complete to determine what junk mail to send you. And almost everyone to whom you make a payment notifies credit reporting bureaus about your payment habits.

Dulcinea's Insight

Traditional companies of all different types collect detailed information on your personal spending habits. Every time you make a purchase you leave a trail of some type. This information can be collected using methods such as supermarket or pharmacy frequent shopper cards, credit card spending reports or airline ticket purchasing habits.

The collecting companies often sell this customer data to third parties marketing firms such as Claritas, Donnelly Marketing, Experian, Equifax and R.L. Polk. These third parties then use your personal spending information, combined with your demographics to build a complete profile of you, to better target advertising on behalf of their clients.

Dulcinea's Picks

AccessMyLibrary has a summary of the all the different types of information that companies collect from your purchasing habits. Read the full article using your local library card or by registering with the site; instructions are linked near the bottom of the page.

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ConsumerAffairs.com lets you in on the secrets of shopping “loyalty cards” and how these stores can give you such deep discounts.

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The Federal Trade Commission gives you succinct instructions on how to opt-out of different forms of direct marketing.

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The Direct Marketing Association is the industry group’s representative and offers arguments on the positive benefits of direct marketing.

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