I recently read an article by Anna Talerico entitled "A simple road to more personalized site experiences", where she urges companies to segment visitors as they come on their landing page. She goes on to say that "you [merchants] can't get out there and talk to each person who clicks through your site, so let your landing pages do the talking for you". 

While Anna may be correct in the fact that segmentation increases customer conversion I strongly disagree with her statement that you can't talk to everyone out there. See, what's wrong with online marketing today is that it has not only become an "all in your face type marketing" but even the consumers who have been segmented by geography, demographics or even purchase history also get the same message. The bottom line is that marketing has become a very homogeneous process in a society that (as segmentation would show) is very heterogeneous. So I ask: where has the creative marketing gone? Can a new way of segmenting customers be called creative marketing? Yes, data will show that good segmentation increases conversion rate, but does it actually increase customer engagement to the point where they are willing to give you their time and attention? Some of the most innovative merchants (i.e. USAA) are using some kind of a Q&A mechanism today to engage customers on their landing page. A quick digital interview leads customers on a path to an offer that they just can't refuse and since that path is designed and chosen by them, they feel engaged in the segmentation process. No more "in your face" marketing. If you are a marketer, ask yourself whether you should be going out there and talk to the next 30,000 persons who will click on your site tomorrow. If you should, then you may want to talk to us.