Necessarily, one of the top priorities for online marketing companies is to connect branded messages with the consumers that are most likely to respond to them. On the surface, this is a straightforward task, and the more consumer data one can bring to bear on it, the better. But for many consumers, the message of an online advertisement or sponsored social media post starts to lose its appeal when it becomes obvious that the advertiser has access to large volumes of their data.

In this sense, online marketing companies are regularly tasked with carrying out a delicate balancing act. They have to collect and utilize enough consumer data to make sure that they aren’t wasting clicks on people who want nothing to do with the product; but at the same time, they have to obscure the role of that data well enough that individual consumers don’t feel as if they are being stalked by advertisements.

In a recent article, Fast Company helpfully framed this conundrum as a conflict between “cool” and “creepy.” The article also made an observation that could allow online marketing companies to change how they think about this issue in the future. According to some of the latest research, consumer thresholds for what constitutes “creepy” may be rising. In other words, despite persistent and often escalating concerns regarding data privacy, many consumers are probably becoming more likely to see it as cool when they receive ads that seem very narrowly targeted to them.

Fast Company attributes this to a number of factors, including general awareness of new regulations and a trend toward more scrupulous policies and practices for some major tech companies. Pair this with increasing awareness about how to safeguard one’s own privacy online, and it seems we are moving toward a situation in which many consumers are confident that the data reflected in their targeted ads is data that online marketing companies acquired by legitimate and appropriate means.

Of course, this belief is still relatively insecure and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. That is to say that online marketing companies can still very easily creep out the consumers they target if, for instance, they transparently push products or services based on where they consumers are physically located and where they have recently been. On the other hand, it should be fairly easy for those same online marketing companies to avoid breaching consumers’ trust as long as they don’t rock the boat and don’t give up on the delicate balancing act that has become easier to manage in recent years.

Advertising clients would be well served to heed this wisdom as well. When they contract with new online marketing companies, one strategy they might wish to discuss is exactly how to target their messages based on available consumer data. While advertisers are probably more likely to think that effective use of that data is cool no matter what, they should always pause to think about how the same use cases will be seen by the consumer. If you think a method of advertorial outreach seems creepy, other people probably will as well.