Ask a consumer to define ‘SPAM’ and ‘Marketing’, and the likely answer will be SPAM is anything they don’t deem personally relevant and marketing anything that they do. In other words, writes Suzanna Chaplin (pictured below), commercial director, ESBConnect, it depends on that particular time and context – what may be SPAM one day, is marketing the next day.

In different channels, a consumer’s intent is revealed in different ways. Search is the simplest, with intent revealed by what they enter into a search engine. In the display/programmatic world, intent data is gathered through cookies, by looking at what products and sites a consumer is viewing. In email, intent is shown by what a person is opening, clicking, and transacting on. All of these provide marketers with a glimpse of what the consumer is researching or buying, at that moment in time.

The more we understand consumer intent, the more effective our ads will become and less likely our own marketing will damage our brand.