Tripadvisor

[Evil Chris]

I've been using Tripadvisor for quite some time, it's handy to get an idea of places before you go, or decide to go, somewhere on holiday.

Anyway, I hadn't logged in there in well over a year and last week I decide to go in and check out a couple of things. I wanted to read some reviews about a new place in the DR, so I searched for it, and found it. Did some reading, browsed a few pics, and that's it.

I have since received two emails from Tripadvisor reminding me how much I like the Dominican Republic. ie. "Put the best of Punta Cana on your phone" was the most recent one.

I'm not complaining, and I don't consider it spam either. I've opted in to receive information from Tripadvisor. But I find it ingenious that they would send me information based on my recent searches on their site. This likely isn't a new thing, just I haven't seen or noticed it before. Well done.

[MikeSouth]

welcome to ten years ago.....companies have been installing these kind of things on your puter forever be they in browser plugins, toolbars, cookies, or a dozen or more other methods.

If I google evil chris marriage to helmy I will get a dozen related emails in the next 2 days

you can use malwarebytes and spybot and everything else and you will never get rid of them all

[Evil Chris]

welcome to ten years ago.....companies have been installing these kind of things on your puter forever be they in browser plugins, toolbars, cookies, or a dozen or more other methods.

If I google evil chris marriage to helmy I will get a dozen related emails in the next 2 days

you can use malwarebytes and spybot and everything else and you will never get rid of them allGee Mike, you could have married me to Lisa Ann at least.

[MikeSouth]

the point was to use something preposterous...presumeably anyway LOL

[Evil Chris]

To jump back a bit, though. I highly doubt this sort of thing is being done by anything locally residing on my own machine.
More likely, since I was logged in to Tripadvisor, they keep track of what destinations I had been searching for, observe the pattern therein, and then the targetted mail goes out.

[miz_wright]

To jump back a bit, though. I highly doubt this sort of thing is being done by anything locally residing on my own machine.
More likely, since I was logged in to Tripadvisor, they keep track of what destinations I had been searching for, observe the pattern therein, and then the targetted mail goes out.

*nods* That's always been the goal of direct mail - gather demographic info and target the user using his or her search strings.

eBay and Amazon have done it for years.

[Hell Puppy]

*nods* That's always been the goal of direct mail - gather demographic info and target the user using his or her search strings.

eBay and Amazon have done it for years.

The current word for it is business intelligence. Customer data is highly valuable and used smartly really increases your revenue per customer and can even do things like provide operational efficiencies.

Amazon is very very good at it. "You might like...", "Today's recommendations for you...", "More items to consider...", "Frequently bought together..."

If you use amazon regularly it becomes damned near psychic.

It amazes me how many large companies are sitting on gold mines of data from paying customers, but have zero clue about how to mine it and use it.