By Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk

by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor

Ever get the feeling the internet is stalking you when you see the same ad over and over, and it’s actually something you’ve been researching lately? Here’s why it happens.

It’s called ad retargeting, and it’s a common practice among internet marketers. Companies that identify you as you surf the web will peg you as a prime candidate for their products or services and proceed to target you for online advertising. The result is that you are served ads based on your recent internet activity – sometimes the same ones, over and over. It really can make you feel like you’re being stalked!

Don’t worry; no one is looking over your shoulder as you go about your digital day. Not literally, anyway. But ad retargeting does serve as a reminder that you’re being tracked online. The very fact that marketers know what you’re interested in these days should make the point that someone is watching your movements.

Here’s how it works: You go to a website for whatever reason, and some entity places a cookie or web beacon on your IP address. They’ll do this because their market research indicates that if you went to that site (or they are the owner of the site you visited), you might be a potential customer for what they offer, and they’d like to convince you of that fact. They then track your future online activity via the cookie or beacon and serve you ads in the hopes that sooner or later you’ll give in and check them out.

It can be inspired by things you think about buying, as indicated by a trip to Zappos or an abandoned shopping cart on some site, or just from general surfing that gives marketers an idea of what you might be interested in. This information then gets tacked to your digital profile and used to feed you ads wherever you go. For example, Bonnie recently did some work that involved researching a client’s competition. Since that time, she’s been constantly bombarded by the same attorney’s ads, complete with his grinning face. It can definitely bring out the paranoia!

The idea is that by paying attention to what individual people are doing online, marketers can create a profile that lets them target ads these users are likely to respond to. It makes sense, and it works. Reminding you about stores you’ve visited or things you’re considering for purchase increases the likelihood that you will return or finally buy the item in question. The internet advertising industry states that only 2% of online shoppers actually buy on their first visit to the site, and Foresee conducted a study that indicates some 40% of internet users would rather see targeted ads than generic ones.

The trouble is that besides being slightly creepy, the practice doesn’t usually take into account the fact that you may have already met that need (the shoes are on their way) or that the ad doesn’t actually reflect your interests (as in the case of Bonnie and the lawyer who’s so desperate to woo her as a client).

It can also backfire when internet users get annoyed by seeing the same ad over and over. Most ad servers place limits on the number of times they’ll deliver the same ad to an individual per online session, but when several ad companies have all tagged you as the perfect candidate for an ad, you may end up seeing it a dozen or more times at a sitting. That gets old fast, and can turn a person off a company that might otherwise have held interest.

The ad retargeting industry is getting more sophisticated, which should let advertisers minimize the risks as they use better methods of tracking and refining their targets. At the same time, internet users are increasingly installing apps like Don’t Track Me and AdBlock to make it harder, if not downright impossible, for advertisers to find them, analyze their behavior and market to them online.

If you’re among the people who find being retargeted annoying, try downloading a few of these apps to minimize the number of targeted ads you see. They’re not always effective, but they do help some. Or you can always have a little fun by misleading ad retargeters with a few judiciously chosen searches for taxidermists and diamond-studded horsewhips. I do both. It doesn’t entirely remove the targeted ads but at least it confuses the profilers and makes me feel slightly less powerless.