With great data comes great responsibility

Marketers are now able to personalize messages for their customers (and potential customers) with greater precision than ever before.

Powerful new data analytics systems, marketing automation platforms, and a host of other tools are part of this revolution in targeting. But the availability of huge datasets is also key. Companies are learning how to combine formerly disparate datasets, and that gives them the ability to perform some truly amazing, and sometimes creepy, acts of individual targeting.

For example: One company, Viant operates a video ad network and holds an enormous database that it uses to help its customers identify promising customers. One reason that database is so big is that Viant owns MySpace. While MySpace is a fraction of its former size (about 40 million active users, making it tiny compared to Facebook), it was once large. Huge, in fact: Over time, more than one billion people registered for MySpace accounts. And while they might not have logged into that account in years, the account still contains valuable data: name, gender, date of birth, email address, and perhaps other details.

In short: The same databases and technologies that make personalization and targeting so effective and powerful in the hands of marketers are also tempting targets for hackers and for surveillance by governments of all kinds. Marketers are sitting on piles of treasure. It’s virtually certain that people will be coming to try to take that treasure and make it their own. So marketers delving into the world of marketing tech need to embrace good security practices and form strong relationships with security professionals in their companies. And they need to do it now.

Read more at VentureBeat

Image Credit: VentureBeat, Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock

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