Targeted Ads: A rare, good experience

On this week's episode of tech is just an enabler.
I want to share something I have come across this week that I find interesting.

So you know how banks, - I live in Nigeria - So I can say something about how banks around here send you targeted emails for salary advance almost everytime - Access Bank does this to me a lot.

Anyways, there is this platform I use https://app.letsdeel.com to receive payments. They handle everything for managing contracts. From drawing up contracts, signing it, generating invoices, remittances to any destination account in the entire universe, they even support payments in crypto. You should check them out if you are looking for something really nice to manage your contractors or you need somewhere to get your funds moved across to your local bank accounts.

Let me get right on before I head down the path where I keep sounding like this is a promo article for Deel.

I was supposed to receive payment for last month's invoice some few days ago but I got word from the company I work with that the payment was going to come in a bit later than expected. Ideally, the payment should have been made to Deel already by the company that way, it enables Deel to make remittance to my account the exact day and date I have on the contract.
But since this month's didn't arrive already and they couldn't credit me, I got an email subtly letting me know that while I was waiting for the payment, I could apply for an advance if I needed it.

I wasn't surprised when the email came in, but I was really impressed and was all smiles, laying on my bed reading it when it came in. The timing was perfect because when I was expecting to get an email that I received a payment, I got one instead telling me about an advance payment option they had.

For me, it just reminds me of the following:

1. Building a product is the happy and simple part. Marketing it is another ball game entirely.
2. Just like people we meet everyday, we remember products for the tastes they leave in our mouths.
3. Data is powerful and could be used to great effects.

Another side to this is having to deal with data privacy and it just makes me wonder the good and amazing things companies could do with the user data they have access to. I have seen videos on the internet and responses to polls that suggest that people really don't mind targeted Ads/emails suggesting to them, stuffs to buy based on their needs or spending/shopping patterns. But for companies to be able to serve useful stuffs, they need to keep collecting data about their users and basically trusting them to do the right thing with the data.