What if you are the way you are, and you take the actions you do because of strategically placed ads and articles online? What if your behaviour is being modified without your conscious knowledge?

We all know advertisers on the internet are stalking us, but Kirk Grogan shows us that marketers now have the power to change not just our buying behaviours, but our beliefs. The key is in understanding how aggregated user data can be used to group people into predictable stages in the persuasion journey.

We are all being stalked, and we know it.

You shop for a pair of shoes online and for the next several weeks, ads for brown tassel loafers follow you across the internet. Well, if you're my grandfather it’s the loafers... for me, it was a pair of Chuck Taylors.

We're sophisticated enough to know that this type of cyber stalking sneaker ad has something to do with ad tracking, big data and maybe even A.I., but what made you feel the need to buy a pair of brown tassel loafers in the first place? Just preference, right? You needed new shoes, you know what you like, what colours would go with your wardrobe - so you picked those.

Are you sure?

What if I told you, you were groomed step-by-step to prefer and purchase those exact shoes, from that exact website, and that those same grooming techniques could be used to make you commit atrocities.

I'm not paranoid. I'm a marketer.

Consumers don't fear that their data is being aggregated because consumers don't understand how it can be used to manipulate them, to groom them and to change their behaviour. The average consumer is likely to believe they are a unique individual with unchecked free will, and that there is nothing particularly special about them that would be worthy of tracking or collecting. From a digital marketing perspective, however, all of these assumptions are false.

As consumers, we are not unique. While each individual may have their own quirks, constant and pervasive collection of data has allowed us to place them into a group of thousands or millions of others with similar traits and beliefs.

It's these very similarities that allow marketers to review what worked on consumers in the past, and then guide new users onto that same path. No free will required. My job entails advising billion dollar corporations how to most effectively guide their customers through these steps, and despite this, I myself don't have the free will to resist. I literally do this for a living and I still buy products I see in online advertisements all the time.

Here's what's happening behind the scenes: Tracking, Prediction, and Behaviour Modification.

Tracking is constant, and honestly the easiest. When I say constant, I mean it. It isn't only what website you went to or came from…

It's how far into every video you watch. It's from what device It’s where you were when you opened every email. It's who you're around in real life.

If every person reading this gave me only their grocery list for the next 60 days, I can most likely give you scarily accurate information about you. Maybe I can tell you what your work schedule is or that you're prone to taking risks, or something as simple as you're attempting your third diet this year - a keto vegan diet perhaps.

We track until we can predict. While online data collection has made predicting easy, prediction itself is old news. Way back in 2010 using only shopper loyalty cards, retailers could track consumers purchases so well that they were able to determine the likelihood of a woman being pregnant - before that woman knew she was pregnant herself.

Think about that. Our data trail can spoil one of our most intimate and celebrated discoveries. But how do they do that? While pregnant women tend to develop a unique shopping pattern, their bodies begin to reject certain smells, driving them to scent free lotions and creams. They also crave certain vitamins and minerals to help the developing babies. The mother doesn't have to consciously shop for these products, human biology demands it. While individuals might not recognise these patterns, when millions of data points are grouped together, the conclusions become increasingly obvious.

Every major corporation that collects your data knows that secret. The more data you have, the better. The better you begin to understand everything your consumer does, the more accurately you can predict the most effective methods to sell them products.

If you're the first company to know that a woman is pregnant, you stand to gain a customer who, for 18 years, will now be shopping for a family.

Okay, so data can be used to track us understand us, maybe better than we would like but that's not an issue right? Companies know who I am and they serve me related products. Sounds nice, actually. It removes the burden of me having to find the products I might love to buy.

Here's the problem:

What if you are the way you are, and you take the actions you do because of strategically placed ads and articles online? What if your behaviour is being modified without your conscious knowledge?

You know the social media quizzes that determine what kind of dog you are, or find out what type of wine you would be? You know the type: Becky's going to share on social that she's a pinot noir because “she can doll herself up or dress casual, making her the perfect wine for any situation”. Or maybe “you're a rosé because you live for a Summer patio!”

To the marketer it doesn't matter what wine you are, it’s the 10 non wine-related questions you just answered that are being compared to the rest of your data to figure out what group of consumers you're most similar to.

You give off data every moment. It isn't only from the search engines and the social media platforms that you use; those are just the easiest methods to track you. Just by attending an event like, for example, a local TEDx, you're transmitting data. I can find out how much a ticket to the event costs and I know the opportunity cost - I know what else is going on in the surrounding area.

So I can begin making assumptions:

Most people in at a TEDx event are middle-class or above, have a predisposition to learning or disruptive thoughts. They're most likely an extrovert who enjoys mingling with large crowds (or they would have just watched the video on YouTube). They value being early adopters or the first to conform to a new idea or way of approaching issues. So, if I had a hypothetical client who was selling, say, an arm patch to reduce hangovers, I might create something similar to this.

A sales funnel:

It highlights the steps I have to take to guide or funnel the audience members here to my goal of buying my client’s patch. Group TEDx starts with the nearly 3000 people at the event, highly social, intelligent extroverts with disposable income, who like new things.

Step one is to qualify, so I'm going to filter by age first.

Then, I might hire influencers, who other TEDx groups follow on traditional or social media, to make you aware of my brand by posting or advocating for my hangover patch.

Then I'll compare everyone who engaged or clicked on that influencers post, and I'll pay your favourite bloggers to review my patch and link back to my website.

I'll track every person who came to my website and pay for a Facebook Ad to ask you for your email in exchange for my 10 guaranteed tips, to get a hangover ebook.

I'll compare everyone's email who subscribed to the upcoming public Facebook event called Seattle bar crawl. I'll schedule three emails to go out to you at intervals leading up to the event, each offering a larger discount on my hangover patch.

And voila, a few of these emails will lead to sales.

Now I'll go find a new event or demographic and I'll go through the whole process again.

Bonus points:

Due to the many apps on your phone that know where you are at all times, I have the ability to know where you visit frequently. I email my B2B sales team and they go sell 50 boxes to the local 711, knowing that all of you are likely to be hungover in that area. It can sound complicated and don't worry if you didn't follow all the steps, just know that these things are intern level tracking and marketing.

Consider this:

Using methods I've mentioned, researchers at Cambridge University were able to understand an individual’s personality better than his own family members could after analysing just 150 likes on Facebook. They could understand that subject’s personality better than his or her spouse could after just 300 likes.

More importantly, companies with this information know how to make you engage with different products and ideas. They know what makes you sad, what ignites the fire in you, what your vulnerabilities are.

Because that's what we do as marketers, isn't it? We manipulate. We take a product you most likely don't need and may never even use and we manipulate you emotionally to believe it's something you have to buy. This usually seems harmless, but what if these tactics aren't used to sell you shoes, but beliefs.

Let's look at that sales funnel again:

Here's a sales funnel I created after reviewing documents and first person accounts of western-educated ISIS recruits. The strategy is the same.

We look at our existing customers and review their data to find other groups online that qualify as our target group.

Then we expose them to our products and ideas through well-known individuals.

Next, we might share information with them through multiple sources they already engage with or trust.

Slowly, we drive them to echo chambers in the form of websites, forums or social media groups that other potential customers and recruits are in.

Finally, we're moving towards personalising a message to them, and we personalise this to make them feel like this idea was exactly what they were looking for, or they needed.

And they're ready to buy a product, or perhaps fly to Turkey so they can illegally cross into Syria. But every recruit was certain they made the choice to join — just like my Chuck Taylors.

Just like in 2016, when liberals and conservatives alike were targeted with millions of dollars of advertisements from a foreign nation. Just like today, as our political and racial divides grow wider.

A moment has quietly passed in society that is desperately important.

This moment was when a small number of humans realised that, by compiling massive amounts of data, they could proactively and intentionally shape our beliefs.

They discovered they could funnel consumers to a goal and mould them along the way to behave like the ideal customer, or activist, or citizen, or extremist.

Nothing I've mentioned is what's upcoming in the distant future or what might occur as a possible eventuality. Everything I've discussed are things I have personally done for clients and I guarantee I'm not the smartest marketer out there. Even the brightest people are not immune to digital manipulation, and peace can't be reached by deleting yourself from the digital world.

What we really need is open dialogue and a collective understanding of how these tactics have divided us - and how we can reconcile those differences.

It requires we all recognise that individuals who are neither elected, nor removable have the capability to alter and impact our daily lives. Most importantly, it requires we recognise that every single one of us, and our beliefs and thoughts, may not be as uniquely ours as we would like to think.

I want you to recognise one thing:

Your data is valuable. It is valuable as a consumer, as a voter and as a human. If you need proof, try to find a single person in your life has never seen an ad on Google or Facebook. If you can't, it's because companies find all of your decisions valuable.

Your data is quite literally your life story, and I sincerely hope that you are the only author crafting that narrative.

Kirk Grogan is a marketing and sales strategist in Seattle. After witnessing how people in different countries receive drastically different news and information, Kirk began to see parallels with the world of data marketing. He now consults with Fortune 100 companies, where he coaches and leads marketing teams to develop conversion testing methods, and teaches them how to engage with potential customers in an organic environment. He has developed multiple unique strategies that are currently implemented across the business world, helping brands connect and build loyalty with consumers.

This is an extract from a 2019 talk delivered by Kirk Grogan entitled “The dark side of our personal marketing data” delivered at TEDxSeattle, published under a Creative Commons Attribution License

How marketers can use data to shape beliefs and influence action