I have a teeny, tiny problem. I think I may have acquired a stalker. In fact, it's a cyber-stalker of sorts. I have to say that I'm beginning to feel like they are literally following me around on the internet, especially on Facebook. Wherever I go, there they are. I'm really starting to feel suffocated and a little creeped out. It all started with trying to save a little money for my wedding...
I'm getting married next September (thank you, thank you), and have started the overwhelming process of planning a wedding. We have decided on an incredibly small inexpensive wedding, consisting merely of myself, my husband-to-be, my parents, and his parents. Our goal is to have a simple, no-nonsense shindig, using most of our saved wedding money for an awesome honeymoon in Hawaii. To help keep costs down, and to avoid pushy salespeople, we are shopping for wedding rings online. I found a couple of great websites that have the ring that I'm looking for at a much lower price than in-store and without all the hassle. Perfect! As soon as I found the ring on these two sites, I bookmarked them so I could find the pages later to decide which site to buy from. Phew! Ring shopping is a lot easier than I thought! Off to Facebook I trotted to check the latest news feed...
As soon as I got to Facebook, I noticed a little ad over on the right side of the page. It was the EXACT same ring that I had just bookmarked from one of the EXACT same websites! WOW!! This must mean that I am totally meant to have this exact ring!! I giggled inside, and pledged that I would only buy my ring from this said website, and not the other, since this was practically a sign from above! Off to Google to look at honeymoon locations...
As I clicked through the different links on Google's results to my search, "Honeymoons in Hawaii", I saw a ton of sites with great honeymoon info. I saw fabulous tips on budget travel, awesome all-inclusive packages, exciting activities, beautiful pictures of beaches and mountains and flowers.....and MY RING!! There was another ad of the EXACT same ring that I had just bookmarked from that EXACT same website. Coincidence?? It must be...
Back on my homepage of Facebook I saw a few cute and funny pictures of puppies, a funny quip from an old co-worker....and another ad of the EXACT same ring that I had just bookmarked from that EXACT same website. I was officially creeped out. How did Facebook know which ring I had decided to buy? How did the Hawaii honeymoon site know?? Was I going to see this ring every time I logged into Facebook??? IS MY FACEBOOK PAGE TURNING INTO A PUSHY, STALKERISH JEWELRY SALESPERSON?!?!?
The answer to that last question is an emphatic YES. Facebook had employed it's incredibly intuitive targeted ads to help an online jewelry store become the exact opposite of what I was hoping for in my ring shopping experience. This unnamed store had turned into a cyber-stalking, money-hungry, ring-slinging sleeze-ball. What was once a warm and fuzzy feeling towards this jewelry company quickly shifted into an annoyed and violated rumbling in my tummy. I impulsively (and vindictively) deleted the bookmark to "My Ring" from my browser, and left the competitors link all alone as the victor to my credit card information.
In hindsight, I can plainly see the intention of this online jewelry store: to get their products out to potential customers via social media, utilizing social media's intelligent forms of advertising. What I don't think they realize is how this kind of marketing campaign can become a bit overwhelming, not to mention intrusive and annoying. In my mind, they may as well have sent an actual salesperson from their virtual store to come to my home and follow me around all day, holding the ring, and shouting the price in my ear every once in a while. From time-to-time, he could even hide behind my sofa and jump out unexpectedly throughout the day, holding the ring and shouting the price. That campaign would have been just as effective as the creepy Facebook advertising campaign.
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