How Target knows when its shoppers are pregnant - and figured out a teen was before her father did

Hearing that stores like Target monitor their customers' spending habits to determine their future ones may not be much of a shock to most.

What may be more of one is that Target's department for Guest Marketing Analytics is so in tune with their consumers based on their spending, they can predict major changes in their lives.



They in fact do it so well, as the New York Times reports, that in one case they were able to predict a high school girl's pregnancy before her father did.

One job: Championing consumer predictions, Target tracks their consumers' spending habits using ID numbers for each shopper which are given to their very own Guest Marketing Analystics department

Meeting with a Target manager while clutching some printed ads that had been delivered to his home, a customer was outraged by their product placement aimed at his young daughter.



'My daughter got this in the mail!' the man said to the manager according to the Times, showing him the store's coupons advertising baby-related products.

'She's still in high school, and you're sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?' the man asked the manager who responded with a baffled apology.



The manager himself didn't know why the man's daughter had received the items.

Changes: Target's ability to hone in on their customers' needs based on their spending history can reveal such lifestyle changes as pregnancy

He followed up with a phone call to him later on, apologizing again.



What the manager didn't know was that the company's analytics department most likely had noticed a pattern of products related to early pregnancy purchased by the man's daughter.



Clues such as vitamin supplements, large quantities of lotion, and hand sanitizers, typical to many pregnant women according to the Target department, signal other items the consumer may need.



Trend: Products commonly purchased before pregnancy signaled to Target one teen's pregnancy which had escaped her own father, leading to ads to her for baby care

Or as a woman's pregnancy continues, what she will soon need, like diapers.



'I had a talk with my daughter,' the man responded later to the Target manager after listening to his second apology on the phone.

'It turns out there's been some activities in my house I haven't been completely aware of. She's due in August. I owe you an apology,' he said.



Target says they became so in tune with their consumers based on their spending habits, their next focus had to be on masking the obviousness in their work.



'If we send someone a catalogue and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,' Andrew Pole, a statistician with Target told the New York Times' Charles Duhigg.

The effort was to avoid a creeped out, stalker-like feeling from their targeted customers.



Updating their layout and style of ads mailed out to their customers, they instead mixed custom-selected products - those based on their information - in with some randomly selected.

The effect diluted the obviousness of their message.



In example, a randomly selected advertisement for cereal may be placed next to an advertisement for diapers, clandestinely as the company knows which may be more of a need to the ad's recipient.

Targeted: Collecting each customer's trend in purchases, in addition to other information, gave the company such an eye for their needs they soon had to make their skill less obvious to prevent unease

Assigning each customer with their own ID number or guest code, the company, like many others, collects and stores their data for these customized shopping suggestions.



Some companies even have the option of buying information from third-party companies specific to tracking a consumer's background.



Race, occupation, relationship status, age, these are all crucial details for labelling and lumping individuals into what their target needs may be.



But as the Times reports, it can get as specific as what magazines a consumer reads, to their credit history, and conversations they've held online.

'And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons,' Mr Pole said.

Success: After narrowing in on their customers' specific needs, Target's Mom and Baby sales skyrocketed

Target would not reveal which information about their consumers they specifically use and collect.

'She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works,' he said.

How successful has this ad placement been?



Soon after put in place, Target's Mom and Baby sales skyrocketed.



The store had figured out what their consumers needed even before they did, as Mr Pole said, and as well made sure to make the items as accessible as possible to them through their store.



The Times notes that the company doesn't release specific numerical profits for their stores' many departments, such as mom and baby, but since hiring Mr Pole to their team of analytics in 2002 , the company's revenues have grown by $23 billion since 2010.

The company's president, according to the Times, congratulated at the time their ability to appeal to specific consumers, like mom and baby.