Marketing technology removed the natural stopping points, and AI is removing what’s left. The businesses that win will be the ones that know when they’ve said enough.

For most of marketing history, a company would only chase you so far. Another sales call took a salesperson’s time. Another direct-mail piece cost money to print and mail. Another ad required more media spend.

Those constraints weren’t good, exactly, but they created natural stopping points: At some point, you had to decide whether pursuing someone was still worth it.

Today, someone visits your website and gets added to a retargeting audience. They download something and enter an email sequence. They click an email and their lead score goes up.

And once all of that machinery starts running, it can be surprisingly difficult to get it to stop. Now AI is removing even more friction. It can create variations of ads and emails in seconds, personalize messages and recommend or execute what happens next.

That’s why I think one of the most underrated marketing skills today is knowing when to stop.

People like personalization when it works. A Boston Consulting Group study of more than 23,000 consumers found four in five were comfortable with personalized experiences. The same study found two-thirds had recently run into personalization that was inaccurate or invasive — experiences that pushed people to unsubscribe, disengage or simply not come back.

Think about your own behavior online. You look at patio furniture you might buy next summer. You research a hotel for a trip you ultimately don’t take.

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