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There seems to be so many unknowns today as we browse the internet. A large majority of consumers open their device, navigate to a site, complete a transaction and resume their day as usual without giving any thought to the processes behind their browsing session. Then individuals open Facebook a few hours later to see an advertisement for the winter boots they just purchased in their Google Chrome web browser. How is that possible? Let’s talk about it.
What are Pixel Tags?
Pixel Tags are small graphic images, also known as “web beacons” or “clear gifs,” embedded in web pages, e-mail messages, video, or advertisements that send information about your use to a server. There are various types of pixel tags which contain JavaScript code. When you access or view a website, video, email, or advertisement that contains a pixel tag, the pixel tag allows entities to drop or read cookies on your browser. Pixel tags are used in combination with cookies to track activity by a particular browser on a particular device. Pixel tags can count the number of visitors to a specific site, monitor how users navigate certain sites, count content views, and bring you advertising both on the site you are using and within other sites, including geographically relevant advertising based on your IP address.
Why is this important?
Once a company can identify a particular user, the company can then track that user’s behavior across multiple interactions with different websites or web servers. Rather than gathering statistics and managing cookies for independent servers, the company can analyze all this data together, and track the behavior of individual users across all the different websites, assembling a profile of each user as they navigate through these different environments. Companies are studying your behaviors on their sites and then using it to serve you ads on other sites.
Here at Rownd, we believe in transparency and trust. Many users do not know about or fully understand what companies do during a normal browsing session. With that said, data privacy is becoming top of mind for more and more consumers. The businesses and brands that show they care and listen to their customers now will reap rewards now and in the future. Want to learn more? Head on over to rownd.io for more information!