Marketing without tracking

DF has been going in hard on Apple Mail not blocking tracking pixels over the last week or so. The relationship between the providers of what we consume content with (browser and email client/services) and the publishers of our content (Facebook, Twitter, Mailchimp et al) is a murky one but, as Apple has discovered, pushing privacy strengthens the brand.

Perhaps those of us working in marketing not only need to make sure we make ethical decisions when we use/choose our tools, but also the possibility we won’t even be able to use services that track every user move in the future. What will marketing look like then? How do we plan? How do we wean ourselves from the notion that data is somehow all important? That marketing is all about outsmarting and persuading people?