Is that ad following you around the internet creepy or kind of cool?

Branded  is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture.



Everybody on the internet knows the feeling: the surprise appearance of an ad that reminds you of how thoroughly your online self is being watched, however opaquely, by eager marketers. But what is that feeling? Are you irritated and vaguely disturbed when your idle search for slippers results in weeks of indoor footwear advertising on every site or app you visit? Or do you appreciate the technical wizardry that promptly plonks a slipper promotion from your favorite brand in your feed?



Concerns about data-tracking and privacy have been a prominent topic for years, drawing scrutiny from a range of policymakers and watchdogs, and no doubt skeeving out untold consumers along the way. Which is why it might be surprising that recent research from consultancy Marigold, surveying more than 10,000 consumers in the U.S. and several other countries, found that consumers find many brand interactions shaped by online data collection are more “cool” than “creepy.”



For example, 54% deemed it “cool” when a promotion “tailored to your activity” pops up within two minutes; 59% appreciated brand messages reflecting actual interests (such as being a runner or hiker); and 80% endorsed recommending products “that align with your past purchases.” A whopping 84% said it was “cool” to receive a “personalized birthday offer.”



It’s a counterintuitive finding, particularly given that blunt framing, and deserves attention, given how long the creep factor has defined the conversation around digitally targeted marketing tactics. These can feel “a little creepy,” as one NPR commentator put it a decade ago, because it’s not clear to a typical online shopper how the mysterious forces of e-commerce seem to know our consumer desires: “We don’t have a map that tells us how a particular bit of information made it from Point A to Point B, nor the social context that gives us insight into why.”



For years, that uneasy feeling seems to have lingered. As recently as a 2020 global survey , two-thirds of polled consumers said that ads following them across devices were “creepy.” Separate research in 2022 found a clear majority of consumers weren’t comfortable with brands plumbing their browsing history. Many “feel creeped out,” the head of the ad tech firm that commissioned the study commented at the time, “when brands use technology to track their internet browsing habits in order to deliver relevant advertising.”



The promise of “relevant” advertising was of course the great pitch for the power of online marketing when it arose in the 1990s and early 2000s: Unlike scattershot broadcast TV ads, digital pitches could be precision-targeted; in theory, you’d see more marketing for stuff you cared about, less that was meant for a completely different consumer group. The reality, however, was that it was brands who were deciding which potential customers were “relevant,” not the other way around. And that could get, well, creepy.



So at first glance, the Marigold findings seem to indicate a major shift in attitude—but digging into its results offers a more nuanced picture. So does adding some broader context: Regulators have drawn new boundaries curbing the use of third-party cookies to track online behavior, and many marketers have recognized the “creep” factor and revised their practices. Notably, Facebook and Google have limited ad targeting around sensitive information like health conditions or personal finances. According to one study , consumers deemed just 3% of digital ads they’d seen as “very relevant,” while 68% were “not at all relevant”; in 2023, the former number had grown to 8%, the latter had fallen to 56%. Still well short of perfect, but an improvement.



That said, consumer attitudes may really be evolving into a more complex—or just more selectively tolerant—take on tracking practices that, reforms aside, remain pervasive. Some practices still creep us out. A majority of those surveyed in the Marigold research found ads for unfamiliar brands based on location, or promotional emails highlighting a specific place they’d visited, to be “creepy.”



And notably, many claimed to have taken privacy-protecting actions on their own: tightening privacy settings, blocking third-party app connections, sharing less online, or browsing via a VPN. So perhaps some combination of these actions has tempered the creepiness factor in persistent digital marketing.



Or maybe we’re all just getting used to it. Broadly, the research results were consistent across generations, with a few notable variations. For example, 62% of boomers said they’d encountered “irrelevant content or offers” online in the past six months; only 42% of Gen Z said the same. Maybe those numbers will change over time—or maybe they suggest a shift: The more consumers grow up exposed to a marketing-soaked, occasionally creepy digital world, the more they’ll just be cool with it.