• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 1, 2014

In a keynote interview at the OMMA Audience Targeting conference, Brian Monahan, VP of marketing at Walmart explained that the retail giant tries to balance its collection of user data to better target offers and advertising with a focus on permission-based marketing. “We favor opt-in relationships,” said Monahan. “We’re trying to avoid crossing that creepy line by trying to get permission.” How does Walmart know when it’s gone too far? “The customer will tell you when you’ve got it wrong because you see it in their behavior, “ he said. Monahan added Walmart also tries to avoid personalizing ads too narrowly, or based solely on what they previously bought, to leave some room for serendipity and expanding customer purchases to other types of products.