Remarketing

I am obsessed with all the ads I see in Facebook right now. I had an epiphany a few weeks ago when I heard my daughter talking about a popular pop-culture figure that she is obsessed with.

I was nodding when she was telling me but a day or two later I started seeing ads all over Facebook about the website, encouraging me to buy one.

And I know how this works. I did not visit the site. I didn’t search for it on social media. I hadn’t clicked a link, liked a page, or even mentioned it in a text message.

Two days later a box comes from the company addressed to my husband.

WHAT. THE HECK.

I sort of lost my mind a bit. Was he logged into my Facebook account? I did not visit the site.

I sat on that knowledge for a week or two while I was very closely examining my sponsored ads. Some of them were driving me crazy. I had been seeing them for awhile and they were interesting subjects.

Then, we had a summer school discussion and I saw my son on a site. I sat over his shoulder while he struggled with payment, and I also knew my husband had been helping him.

The next day I saw ads for the school site.

At that point, I thought my husband had been on it and some of the other ads I had been seeing made me loose my mind a bit.

I have concluded that I’m being remarketed to through shared IP addresses, lookalike audiences, and browser data.

But it’s making me REALLY eyeball all the sponsored ads I’m getting.

I was getting extremely heavy Skyzone ads for about a week. And then all of the sudden it appeared on the calendar for my son. And then things become so much clear!

Now I’m seeing Dave & Buster ads.

But it’s the other ads that have my brain spinning. Some of the ads are REALLY weird. Some of them are jolting. Some of them seem to come from my brain. Some are super obvious from my online shopping.

I did spend a very heavy 24 hours writing this all out a week ago, obsessing, giving it to AI, and then settling down. Most of it was in my brain from the ads I was seeing thinking other people were on those sites.

And I think I wanted more time to process it because the roller coaster I went on wasn’t panic in the normal sense. It was more to protect myself. And to control and know what was happening. Which is natural but once I went through it, it was really fascinating to me how I went on that deep dive and came out of it.

It definitely helped to journal and figure out the feelings I was going through. I also really wanted to get more knowledge of the situation without asking and I was able to control my impulse and let it sit. And after I did that, everything just sort of went away. I stopped obsessing about it and just figured I would let it be.

But, I am still obsessed and side-eying every single ad I get.

Again, I am very cognizant about how remarketing works. But I didn’t realize how heavy the “household targeting”, “IP based visits” and/or “lookalike audiences” would get me from my own family’s browsing.

I got one for adult schizophrenia medication which really made me pause. And I had to google how to spell that so now I’m committed to potentially seeing more.. ha ha. But seriously, what data point triggered that ad? Was it related to any of my health stuff? Which is not schizophrenia? Which is not even something I have considered for any of my immediate family or pondered in years for other family members? (As I was writing this I was remembering some family history – ha ha – but nothing in the last 20 years.)

But is this just me using this knowledge to know where my son’s next adventure is (Dave & Buster’s apparently?) or other things? I think it is. I do like gathering knowledge and keeping it in the back of my mind and hopefully it won’t drive me crazy.

Because I may have to resort to more private browsing, ad blockers, and more which makes me sad because usually I’m REALLY open to being marketed to!