Looks like the accountant's stole the e marketers
So, sitting down the other night doing some research for an assignment which had me searching for the charted accountants website on Google.
Like normal I hit the first one on the list of results. Charted Accountants website, tick, but that's when I noticed. I wasn't on the homepage. I was on the student homepage.
Well played Mr Accountant ... well played.
Me being the innadequate digital native just thought targeted e marketing and advertising was restricted to Google and Facebook however, it seems that even the accountants have caught on.
Initially I thought it was kinda cool that they thought that a student searching charted accountants was looking at graduate jobs and stuff (even though I wasn't looking for any of that and have no intention of becoming an accountant), but then I thought a little more.
What on the internet knows I'm a student; Facebook, blogger, google and monash to name a few but I'm pretty sure I've never investigated becoming a charted accountant which means they had to have bought the information from someone.
Facebook tailoring their advertising to me is one thing (its on the same website and keeps it free) but this in my opinion has crossed the line.
Now I'm not about to start putting foil hats on my head and declaring that the accountants are watching me from outer space but maybe businesses should be a little more wary of the e marketing techniques they are using. Consumers aren't stupid and even though they have broadcast certain pieces of information on the internet that does NOT make it fair game.
What do you think? Shouldn't stuff like this be illegal?
posted by Alex @ 01:26
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Maybe it was just a coincidence? Were you logged in to your Google account at the time?
I can assure you that they don't have the ability to track you information for that - at least not in this case.
I just did a search of Chartered Accountants in Google and assume that I got a very similar result page to you.
Where I think you have got confused is that Google served up a sponsored ad at the top of the page which is actually promoting their graduate program, and isn't actually a organic result. Now Google hasn't tracked information for this, instead what has happened is that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia has paid for them to be listed in SEM results. This allows them to capture people searching for all sorts of related terms and help drive them to the student page.
Be wary of what Google can actually use. While they do have a huge storage of data on most people who use their search engine, they are still limited in their ability to act and implement actions from this information.
Wags, I was logged into my student account if that changes anything.
Matthew, thought it may not be the way I assumed thanks for the clarification guys.
Big bad google isn't that bad afterall
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home