Email Targeting Knows I lived In Romania

I've long been a proponent for email targeting in advertising. While it may seem invasive for Google to let me know about airline prices while I'm emailing my buddy about going to Vegas, its also unbelievably convenient. I'm on the side of offering more information to advertising companies because the Web will only develop as a personalized medium when consumers allow it to. And bottom line, anyone who has ever had a credit card has already given up more personal information than any ad targeting company will collect.

Having said all that, I was truly amazed this morning to find this email in my inbox..."Been Looking For ROMANIAN Products?" The capitalization of Romanian is a dead giveaway that my email somewhere crossed with Romania as a trigger. I have no idea who Idakoos is or who they've contracted for their emails, but this is unbelievable Out of left field I'm getting ads for t-shirts that say "Everyone Loves A Romanian." This is amazing because not only am I part Romanian, but I also lived there for 4 months last year. I hadn't emailed or spoken to anyone about this experience in months, and then this email shows up.

Well done Idakoos. However you found me, I'm damn impressed.