Do companies know I’m a broke college student?
https://medium.com/@rwitt/why-income-targeting-is-bound-to-improve-your-social-ads-7e524dd2004b
I’ve recently clicked on a few Facebook ads linking to companies whose clothes I cannot afford. From there, I started wondering if ads are (or can be) targeted towards not only age and education demographics but also income level. In short, does Facebook know I’m a poor college student? I found an article talking about income targeting ads in Medium. What I found interesting is that although companies such as Google and Facebook do not have direct access to what my income is, they are very good at figuring out the general income bracket I fall in. The article describes why income targeted advertising may be useful to companies and how in addition to other demographics, may be especially effective.
Although this article does not go into detail about how companies such as Google and Facebook are able to predict my income, I can see how it may not be too hard. For example, I am a student and my Facebook profile indicates I am a student at Cornell. Therefore, it would not be a stretch to assume that I don’t have a full time job. Additionally, most of the people I am friends with on Facebook are also students. Companies like Google probably know my age and a general idea about my spending habits from my search history. Therefore, it would not be difficult to infer my income level. For example, given the fact that I am 21, most of my friends are around the same age and I choose to buy clothes on sale, the probability I am in the top 10% income bracket is pretty low. In this way, these companies are using the social networks we belong to, and the information we put online to decide how to send us targeted ads. In this class, we were given the value each companies would assign on a ad placed on a certain website. In practice, these values can be calculated using information about what demographics usually visit a certain site. These demographics don’t just have to do with age group, education or location, they can also relate to the financial situation of the people being targeted. In this way, the chance of not only someone clicking on a ad, but making a purchase can be increased.