The phrase “people-based marketing” is recent, coined by Facebook in 2014. But its goal of reaching the right consumer with the right offer, because you understand that person, goes way, way back. This timeline shows the evolution of people-based advertising from its origins in one-to-one marketing, to the present day.

LESTER WUNDERMAN COINS THE TERM “DIRECT MARKETING.”In an address to MIT in 1967, Lester Wunderman, founder of the Wunderman ad agency, noted that mass-marketed products are “produced without orders for unknown customers,” replacing “traditional, individualized” service. He predicted and led a counter-revolution in which brands reached out directly to consumers who fit the criteria of a likely buyer.

1967

DIRECT MAIL EXPLODES.Direct mail existed in primitive forms long before Sears and Montgomery Ward flooded the land with catalogs in the late 1800’s. But by the 1970s, the combination of computerized mailing lists and more affordable color printing made mailers of all types a better option. Retailers and political groups, for example, seized the chance to reach individuals with more personalized messages.

DITTO TELEMARKETING.By the end of the 1960s, the practice of calling people directly at home for marketing purposes was common. In the Seventies, it boomed just like direct mail and for the same underlying reason: it gave marketers direct, one-to-one access to targeted customers. But after interrupting one too many dinners, telemarketing was reined in by the 2003 federal Do-Not-Call List, which allowed people to opt out of telemarketing calls.

1970s

THE FIRST WEBSITE LAUNCHED.A team of CERN engineers led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee worked to provide the first tangible example of the potential of the World Wide Web - and unbeknownst to the team, they kicked off a whole new era in marketing.

1991

1993

PEPPERS AND ROGERS LAUNCH THE CRM REVOLUTION.With their very first book, “The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time,” Don Peppers and Martha Rogers examined the converging futures of marketing and technology, a world that looked very much like the digital landscape to come. They argued that the future belonged to one-to-one marketing, based on customer relationship management (CRM) data and using individually addressable technologies and mass customization.

THE FIRST DISPLAY AD RUNS.An AT&T banner on wired.com kicks off the “golden era” of display advertising. Marketers aren’t sure who they are reaching, in what context, or of the value – but spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the medium in the years to come.

1994 1995

WEBSITES START TO GET PERSONAL.Internet Explorer integrates support for cookies. Soon, marketers combine cookies and logins to offer a more personal website experience, and this rapidly becomes a common practice.

HOTMAIL LAUNCHES AS A FREE EMAIL SERVICE.Soon, email marketing followed. It was faster and cheaper than direct mail or telemarketing, though initially it was a “spray and pray” method—one-to-one, but not exactly surgical.

1996

2000

ONLINE PRIVACY COMES TO THE FOREGROUND.The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) becomes the digital advertising industry’s first self-regulatory body to establish guidelines for protecting consumer privacy. In addition to ensuring consumers have clear notice, choice, and opt-out mechanisms, the NAI establishes the need to remove personally-identifiable information (PII) from data used to drive advertising campaigns.

YOUTUBE LAUNCHES ITS FIRST VIDEO ADS.Under pressure to offset large operating costs, YouTube begins overlaying ads on video content and quickly shifts over to pre-roll video ads. Google unlocks another multi-billion dollar revenue stream as marketers rapidly embrace the opportunity to engage consumers with richsound, sight, and motion on digital.

2007

MEDIA GIANTS BEGIN TO SUPPORT DIRECT DATA INTEGRATIONS.Large database marketing companies develop the ability to match CRM data records to user accounts at social networks, internet music services, and publishers that have high volumes of logged in users. The process is dubbed “onboarding,” as in “onboard your CRM data intodigital channels.” The capability underpinning the process is the ability to resolve consumer identity across digital platforms and devices.

2009

MOBILE ADVERTISING IDs MAKE GAINS.The use of IDs to track mobile users had grown in fits and starts. In 2012, Apple tries again with its IDFA (identifier for advertisers), a random, anonymous number that helps advertisers target on mobile, where cookies are less effective. Google follows a couple of years later with its own mobile advertising ID, and advertisers are better able to serve and measure ads in this increasingly important channel.

2012 2013

BIG COMPANIES MAKE BIG INVESTMENTS IN IDENTITY RESOLUTION.Two start-ups who pioneered data onboarding services, are acquired - Acxiom buys LiveRamp and Oracle quickly follows with its purchase of Datalogix. In parallel, data onboarding into programmatic marketing platforms takes off in display channels.

FACEBOOK COINS THE TERM PEOPLE-BASED MARKETING.When Facebook rolls out its Atlas ad server, it uses “people-based marketing” to remind marketers they can recognize specific individuals in Facebook’s digital channels, and apply context to each interaction. Over the next three years, Facebook ad revenue growsby more than 300%.

2014

PEOPLE-BASED SEARCH DEBUTS WITH GOOGLE CUSTOMER MATCH.Designed for Google search, display, and video campaigns, this new targeting method allows marketers to show targeted ads to potential customers based on their email address.

2015 2016

TV VIEWING CONTINUES TO FRAGMENT AND ALSO BECOMES MORE PEOPLE-BASED.Viewership splinters as more than half of all internet users view content through a connected TV and use an OTT subscription service like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. In parallel, addressable TV penetration reaches more than 50% of households, and the number of households with no paid TV service whatsoever grows to 10%.

BIG PLAYERS PLACE MAJOR BETS ON PEOPLE-BASED MARKETING.Several companies make moves to challenge people-based powerhouses Facebook and Google, who collectively capture 80% of digital marketing budgets - Snap raises $3.4B in its IPO, Verizon completes its acquisition of Yahoo!, AT&T seeks to join forces with Time Warner, and Amazon quietly emerges as a major programmatic advertising platform.

2017

TODAYPeople-based marketing continues to gain traction throughout the ecosystem as brands seek to understand and engage target audiences across all channels - and tie their marketing investments back to real sales results.’

To learn more about people-based marketing, download our primer.