Is your phone really listening to you?

Part of what I get to do for this station in addition to being your tech byte host is my job as an account executive. That’s just a fancy way that we say advertising sales.

What that means is that we are going to give you some inside information on the how and why behind all these ads that you see on your phone this time of year.

There are a lot of people that say things like “be careful your phone is always listening to you,” and “wow I was just talking about a toaster and here it is in my Amazon cart!” But, how does that work?

Digital ads are a mix of many different things, most of them tied to your online searches and in some cases your location history.  That can be on your phone, your computer or a tablet.  Companies track your search and your location history can be used to serve ads based on where you’ve been.

Have you ever been on a car lot looking for a new car and the next day you see an ad for a competitor’s brand?  That’s digital marketing at work.  What about a store you visit regularly that keeps serving you ads with their latest specials?  Again, this is digital marketing at work.

It goes even further.  Your phone carries with you a lot of data.  If you’re like me and you use a streaming service all of my searches lead me to get targeted ads.  You may wonder why you’re seeing a certain ad and it’s all based on your search history and location.  I’ll see ads for things like tires, and camera gear.  My wife will see ads for vacations and Disney trips.  Both of us in the same home, watching programs on different TV’s and it serves us ads based on us as individuals. My hope is that you’re searching for the things we feature here on Tech Byte and you too will start seeing ads for the things we’ve featured. I hope everyone searched for the paintball security system because that’s about to hit the shelves.

There are many tactics that would take days to cover, but these are all examples of geofencing, search retargeting, and targeted display.  People like me help advertisers find the one that works the best for them and their target audience in order to be more effective for the advertiser and more efficient for us as consumers.

So there you have It folks. There is no need to be alarmed, the ads you get are relevant to you and the places you go and the things you search for.  There are aps you can use to limit what information is shared but they too have their own ads.

If you have questions about todays episode, or you need to see us feature your idea.  Please shoot me an e-mail.