Big Brother is always looking out for you

Posted by Andrew Purchas

At GradConnection we are constantly learning and have now grown into the largest grad website in Australia, the technology which runs behind the scenes has been quietly learning as well. I’d like to give you a sneak peak into “remarketing” which is something you would have seen online whether you were aware or not.

How many times have you been shopping online, gotten to the checkout but never quite managed to complete the transaction? Maybe the cat knocked over your coffee, maybe your better half suggested you may not really need it or for whatever reason you never completed the purchase. You know you still want your order and now so does the website who ideally wants to get you back to finish what you started.

GradConnection

Once you’ve abandoned your online shopping cart the website knows you. They know who are and exactly what you are most likely to purchase from your previous website activity. They might contact you directly or they might conveniently place advertisements on other sites with the products you tried to buy at better rates! The bottom line is they want you to come back and the best way to make that happen is to remind you constantly of what you missed out on!

To give you an idea of how many websites are trying to work out who you are and what you might want I ran a quick scan one afternoon for a couple of hours. Each circle represents a different website who are tracking me in some way and the lines show relationships between each website.

GradConnection

This level of tracking might be shocking to some, but for the record I’m a big fan. I never miss out on my favourite bands gigs, and when I need something like a new suit I’m rarely paying the RRP- for me and many others, it’s a win win.

It’s not as scary as may you think, and your business may actually benefit from it. So come and find out more about this at the AAGE and hear how this can work for you. You can also leave us a comment below to let us know what you think.


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