Audience targeting selects particular people or groups for messages, offers, interfaces, or interventions using information about their behavior and circumstances. The same practice can support helpful action or manipulate people at scale. section 2.5.1 section 2.4.8
Companies build targeting systems from the data people create through connected devices, games, browsing, purchases, and other activities. Enough data can make an offer seem perfectly timed, even when accepting it conflicts with someone’s long-term interests. section 2.5.1 section 3.5.3
Targeting can affect people in different ways:
- Commercial platforms use collected data to shape attitudes, actions, offers, and engagement. section 2.5.1
- Games and interfaces can be designed to engage younger children by analyzing and targeting their activity. section 3.5.3
- Institutions can target support rather than persuasion, such as identifying first-generation students at risk of dropping out and sending tailored messages. section 2.4.8
A targeted student-support program
A college combined attendance, assessment results, and engagement data to identify first-generation students at risk of dropping out. Tailored analyses, messages, and actions significantly reduced that group’s dropout rate. section 2.4.8
