To all the websites out there that I browse: Please don't personalize yourselves for me based on my browsing or online purchasing history. I know that's like asking winter not to come to the northeastern part of the USA, but I must vent about this. I don't like the ever more focused marketing that websites are engaging in, so I am going to put out my tiny, squeaking complaint about it.
First of all, I hate having possibly thousands of website owners knowing what I look at and buy online. I realize that this is what the world has come to in the Internet age, but I don't like it and wish it would go away. And I truly wish winter would go away and never return to the Northeast. Good luck with that, right?
Second, why on God's green earth would a website think that just because I bought a fancy gown online several weeks ago to wear to an upcoming wedding, I would want to buy 50-100 additional fancy gowns? Or that just because I have recently booked flights, hotels and rental cars for business and other trips I will be taking in the next couple of months, I would need to book 50-100 more flights, hotels and rentals cars for those very same destinations? I am only going to each destination once this fall - not 50-100 additional times.
Use your brains, websites. I realize that in today's super-public world, where everything people do online is looked at and used to market stuff to them, I am not going to be able to hide what I do online from anyone, especially not websites looking to sell me things. But puh-leeze! I am not going to buy 50-100 more fancy gowns after I bought the one I will wear to the wedding I am going to. You can push pictures and links and ads for the fanciest dresses on every website I visit all you want, but no matter what, I will not be buying another fancy gown anytime soon. Nor will I be going on a trip to THE SAME CITY more than once this fall. So why would you push flights to and hotels and rental cars in that same city over and over again as I read my emails, use websites while I work, and browse them for fun?
Here's an idea for marketing to me online: If you see that I bought a fancy gown, go a step beyond your extremely stupid and limited marketing efforts. Don't push ads for hundreds of fancy gowns at me. Instead, push ads for fancy shoes or fancy purses or fancy hair accessories at me. If you used even half of your miniscule brain power, you might realize that if I already bought the fancy dress, I might still need everything else a woman needs to attend a fancy wedding. Push that stuff at me and you might actually get me to click on your ad.
If I recently booked flights and reserved hotels and car rentals in certain cities, why not push OTHER cities for me to consider traveling to? I probably won't click on your ad because I vastly prefer to plan the trip first, then book flights, hotels and rental cars (as needed). But who knows? You might just entice me with an interesting enough ad for a DIFFERENT city than the ones I already made my reservations for. Doubtful, but you never know what a bit more intelligence in your marketing tactics might do.
However, I really don't hold out much hope for websites to listen to one tiny squeak from an online purchaser and use real intelligence in their marketing efforts. Marketing has gone from its broad origins - TV commercials and print ads and radio spots for anything and everything blasted at everyone who happens to be watching TV, reading magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc., or listening to the radio - to its current much more narrow focus on the websites individual people browse through or buy things from. But just as in the old days of broad marketing, if I am not in the market for something, chances are pretty good that I won't buy anything, no matter how many supposedly personalized ads I get pushed at me on websites - ESPECIALLY NOT THINGS I JUST BOUGHT!
Thank you for allowing me to vent.