Lost in the (Facebook) Crowd

There is a great debate over the positives and negatives of tracking us when we are online, and no doubt, one side of that creeps me out.

But there is another side, the side of “I know you, I do business wit

h you, I interact with you regularly, so you ought to know me, too.”  From that perspective there are many benefits to some of the online tracking, and I want those benefits.

Working in digital marketing, perhaps I am just uber-sensitive to tracking and targeting and what software ought to be able to do, but I was hit twice this morning with mildly frustrating experiences that, although minor, could have been avoided altogether with the right kind of data management and tracking (and would have subsequently provided the customer – me – with a much better experience):

First, this morning Facebook sent me an email telling me: “You haven’t been back to Facebook recently. You have received notifications while you were gone.” I did have some notifications, and it’s true that I do not login to Facebook as often as a lot of others I know, however, I had just logged in YESTERDAY.  How did Facebook not know that? Or at least not “know” enough to not send me an email saying I hadn’t been to Facebook “recently”?  I realize you have over 600 million users, but even so, you know ME, don’t you Facebook?

Second, no too long after I also received an email from WhichTestWon, a testing website I subscribe to.  I get their weekly email alerting me that a new test is up to review.  When I clicked on the link in that email, it took me to the test (no problem so far), but within a few seconds of getting on the page a full screen takeover ad popped up to invite me to sign up for their weekly test email notifications.  BUT I JUST CLICKED THAT EMAIL TO GET HERE BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN SIGNED UP FOR MONTHS!!!  Granted, I am not signed into their website, so they might not know it’s ME per se, but shouldn’t they be able to know that I got to the page by clicking through the email they are now inviting me to sign up for?

With all of the amazing technology at our fingertips, I believe we must do better.

What about you – do companies or sites you frequent ever make you feel lost in the crowd?

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