Data-driven marketing: The algorithm didn’t read your mind

A year later you are catching up with a friend over coffee and at some point during the conversation, you mention that you are thinking about going away again. You loosely describe what you are looking for: somewhere relaxed with good food and maybe something similar to the wine country.

You do not pick up your phone, and you do not open a single tab. However, that evening your social media feed begins to shift. Almost without noticing, flight deals to the Western Cape pop up on your Instagram feed and an email notification from a travel agency about a guesthouse in Hermanus appears, while a short-form video about whale-watching and visiting the Hemel-en-Aarde wine valley make their way on your mindless scrolling on TikTok.

Sponsored or not, it is all there. Assembled quietly and served back to you like a suggestion from someone who knows you well.

It feels like your phone was listening, but it wasn’t. The truth is quieter than that, and far more deliberate. Somewhere between that wine tour and that cup of coffee, you left a trail and the algorithm followed it perfectly.

The short answer is that your phone did not need to listen. It already knew. This is not a result of a single moment. Instead, it is a consequence of a thousand small ones. Every time you open an app, visit a website, interact with content online, or mindlessly accept cookies, you are leaving behind a data point. Individually, those instances are not meaningful.

However, collectively, the build something remarkable: a behavioural profile that reflects what you do online, what you want, what you value, and where your attention goes when nobody is watching.

The algorithm did not steal this information, nor did it need to hear your conversation. In almost every instance, you gradually handed it over across years of ordinary online behaviour.

The terms and conditions of a website you accepted without reading, the loyalty programme you signed up for in exchange for a discount, the “allow notifications” you tapped without thinking, and even the mindless acceptance of Apple’s “Ask app to track” behaviour on your phone whenever you download a new app.

In this case, it already had December. It had the five-star review, the Instagram post, the guesthouse you tagged, and even the wine estate page you followed afterwards. It had the fact that you opened three travel newsletters in November and did not unsubscribe.

It also had your location metadata from the weekend, your search history from the planning stages, and the subtle, albeit telling, detail that you pause just a second longer than usual on a TikTok reel about the Hemel-en-Aarde valley six weeks before your coffee catch-up. None of this required a microphone. It just required your attention, freely given, over a long period of time. This is behavioural targeting and it is not new.

Behind every eerily well-timed ad is a strategic marketing decision. A brand has identified its ideal customer, built an audience profile, and instructed a digital platform to find more people who behave exactly like them.

The platforms make this possible because they sit on thousands of user data. They know who you are demographically, but also who you are behaviourally. Your doom scrolling habits past midnight when you cannot sleep, what you search for after a hard week, and even the kind of content that makes you stop scrolling long enough to feel or think about something.

This enables marketers to target you based on your recent travel experiences, life events, and purchase intention signals, amongst other things. They build what are called “look-alike audiences” by taking a profile similar to yours and finding others who share your digital fingerprint. These may be people who may have never interacted with the brand but are statistically likely to respond to it.

This is data-driven marketing and artificial intelligence applications at their most precise.

So, should we be worried? Not quite. But here is what is worth knowing.

From a consumer’s perspective, the targeting may seem sinister. However, none of this is hidden. It is all disclosed in privacy policies that most of us scroll past without a second thought. While numerous conversations are being held on consumers’ rights to safety and privacy, the gap here is awareness.

Read More: World Consumer Rights Day: Milpark’s Online Shopping Tips

Awareness plays a significant role in your online experience. The holiday you loved being served back to you at the exact moment you were ready to book again is not manipulation. It is relevance that when it works well, saves you time, surfaces things you actually want, and makes the online experience feel less random and more personal.

What is worthwhile to note is that this exchange is happening whether you are conscious of it or not. Your data is being collected, interpreted, and acted on continuously and quietly in the background of every scroll, every search, and every five star review you leave behind. The question is not whether you should opt out of the modern internet. Rather, the question is how to participate in it more intentionally.  

As data-driven marketing becomes the standard in 2026, knowing that your digital behaviour shapes what you see is the first step. The algorithm will keep getting better at knowing you. But it can only work with what you give it – and now, at least, you know exactly what that is.

At Milpark’s School of Commerce, students do not just learn that the algorithm exists. They learn how to build it, interrogate it, and use it responsibly. They understand the data behind the targeting, the strategy behind the timing, and the human behaviour behind the click. Graduates leave equipped to make marketing decisions that are not just precise, but intentional – a core skill in data-driven marketing.

If you are ready to understand the system from the inside and become a marketer who knows exactly which notes are worth handing over, apply now.