Working in marketing – which still sounds oh so pretentious – I deal with Facebook advertisement amongst other things. As such I know of all the targeting options available from the usual age or gender to the more unusual and somewhat creepy others. They’re outlined in this article, but here is a list of the ones I find more worrying:
- Recently moved
- Away from family
- Away from hometown
- Interests -> Charity/Causes
- Engaged or married [with various timeframes!]
- Baby boomers
- Parents [with various options for the children's ages]
I have limited information on my Facebook profile. For example I don’t have my hometown listed, never listed my relationship status and my profile is barely filled out. The pages I like are varied and don’t contain any that would assume I have children. I update my status about 1-3 times a month with things about me or what I have done.
For all those reasons I find it odd that lately I have been served an increasing amount of pregnancy, baby and toddler related ads with some specific ones related to childcare or weddings. I know this is just to do with the bad targeting, but sometimes it makes me wonder just what Facebook is telling me.
The following is just a very small selection:
2 Comments
I get that nursery one all the time too. They must just be targeting all women over 20 in a certain area or something.
Good point!