A lot of people online are concerned about companies and services respecting their privacy, and with good reason too. There are many ways that people can be tracked online when they enter personal information into forms, submit files to websites, and generally just use the internet. Even google has been accused of overstepping the line of privacy by keeping very detailed records of peoples search habits.

You may have heard a little buzz on the forums of late about a new, covert way of spying on your market and tracking their surfing behaviours.
As with anything new, there's 2 opposing views

1/ You shouldn't because it's an invasion of privacy
2/ It's a perfectly legitimate part of marketing

Before I tell you which camp I'm in... lets examine what is going on.

First and foremost. There's nothing underhanded in this technique. Finding out what your market wants is a vital part of marketing.

It's been so since the first primitive man realized he could sell his clubs to other members in his tribe. How did he know they needed the clubs? By observation. Then it was just a matter of selling them the benefits of his club over other implements being used.

So, if observing others is a crime... then the whole human race is guilty.

Some, though, feel observing what your market does while looking at your sales copy on their computer is an invasion of privacy. Many of these people happily use other forms of tracking software though!

So, where's this new covert marketing tool different? It tracks what people do within each page. You can see what parts are being read, and which aren't. You can see where they leave and where they convert, either an order page link, Adsense link or something else within your site.

So the intelligence that's gathered gives you instant feedback on what works, or doesn't work on your sales page. Changing copy so it sells better to your market is no longer guesswork. You'll know exactly what to change so your market has a better, more emotionally rewarding experience.

If you do this... you could improve your sales conversion exponentially. Although you still have to test and be creative. It doesn't make you a better copywriter alone, just points out to you what parts of your copy need changing, so you can try something new and see if it works.

It probably feels like an invasion of privacy because of the way this software interprets the information gathered. It is so simple to understand.

However, as far as I'm concerned... it's no more an invasion of privacy than any other form of tracking.

I believe this intelligence gathering tool is something that can be harmlessly used by internet marketers and copywriters that want to write better sales pages. It's not as though they're looking at any personal data, just what you're doing when you're surfing their website. It's no more an invasion of privacy than a corner store mounting video cameras to monitor the aisles in their store as you shop.

Plain and simple, it's just a useful tool.