What’s in YOUR marketing database record? Now you can find out!

If you use appended lists or certain selections on marketing databases, you’ve probably wondered where some of the information comes from. And, if you’ve ever received a piece of mail that seemed off-target, you probably wondered what you did to trigger that mailing piece.

Now Acxiom is letting consumers look behind the curtain at their databases. If you go to AboutTheData.com you can find out exactly what one of the largest marketing databases has on file about you. What’s more, you can edit your information because, in all likelihood, some of it is not accurate. You can discover where the information is gathered, and you can opt out of being marketed to based on some of those data pieces. For example, if you don’t want to be marketed to as a Democrat or Republican, you can opt out of that information being shared with marketers.

Before you agree to offer up your information (like birthdate, etc.) be sure to read the privacy policy. Once you fill out the form with its required fields such as email address, you essentially agree that your data can be used for marketing purposes.

As a direct marketer, though, I overcame my hesitancy to share data just so I could learn what was in my record.

It does seem to be a new era, one where you can see and edit the information used to market to you.

Thanks to Beth Roy at CDS Global for turning me on to this website.