121Media's senior marketing manager explains how behavioral targeting with social networking, video and a wider range of sites will better reach your audience. 

As the industry continues to buzz about Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail" and retailers figure out if it's worth carrying niche items in their stores, savvy marketers should be considering the opportunity to test the long tail of the web for their own brands. The behavioral targeting offerings from a number of leading ad networks provide plenty of easy-to-buy inventory. Could the lower CPMs and CPCs combined with readily available inventory from networks be the ROI pot of gold at the end of the long tail?

When advertisers want to reach particular demo- and psycho-graphics, the power lies with the audience, not the content. Buying inventory based on content is simply taking a best guess on who will be reading or watching it. Today's ad networks are able to categorize users based on their browsing behaviors so we can reach them when we trust the technology to deliver the right ad to the right person.

Advances in behavioral targeting technology will make it even easier to reach narrower segments-- people further down the tail. Instead of just buying the "automotive" channel from a network, we'll be able to differentiate and deliver different ads to a woman looking for a minivan than a man looking to satisfy his midlife crisis with a new sports car, regardless of where they go on the web.

Advertisers will be able to -- have to --  rethink exactly who their target audience is because they'll have the ability to reach them more accurately than ever before. "Men 18-49" won't cut it online as a desired demographic. It simply wastes ad impressions. Identifying more highly qualified audiences means serving fewer ads to reach conversion or acquisition targets, or delivering specific brand messages. We're talking about being able to hit the bullseye every time instead of just hitting the target.

The issue the long tail raises is how far will marketers follow their audience?

Bear in mind that this is a question of technology, not morality, and how it affects the landscape of available inventory. It's easy to understand why there's no shortage of content that advertisers want to stay away from. But behavioral targeting provides new insight and new opportunities to reach audiences in places that advertisers have previously felt uncomfortable with, or simply didn't consider because niche audiences don't deliver the scale they need. 

"Networks with large reach and behavioral targeting capabilities are the ideal, if only, effective vehicle for reaching deep into the long tail," said Steven Goldberg, VP of business development at 24/7 Real Media. "Regardless of the specific content, we're able to deliver audiences anonymously to our advertisers practically anywhere they go on the web."

Social networking, video and BT
YouTube and MySpace, two wildly popular sites with the public and the media, represent the epitome of behavioral targeting opportunity. Booming social networks and the onslaught of user-generated content flooding the web every day provide advertisers with the opportunity to capitalize on tremendous amounts of untapped inventory in the hottest segments of the online world. Behavioral targeting makes it easy for advertisers to decide exactly who they want to see their ad, regardless of what end of the tail the content comes from. "Funny sports videos" are a different end of the tail from "Guy gets hit in the head with foul ball."

Jason Glickman, CEO of Tremor Networks, also agrees that the value of an online network is in the long tail. "The beauty of behavioral is that we can help advertisers find users who may not be where they expected them." But he is also quick to point out that all of the sites in their network still have to follow strict guidelines that absolutely restrict questionable content. 

For the moment, Glickman says that "online video is a case of the long tail wagging the dog. Professionally created, studio quality content is still a very small portion of what's currently viewed online, but that is changing dramatically each day."

I have been reassured by a number of people in the industry that unclassified video content will have a very short shelf life. By the end of the year, we can expect to see technologies introduced that make labeling video content easy to do, which is fantastic news for advertisers and content distributors alike. But that still leaves plenty of wiggle room -- and inventory -- for advertisers who are willing to test the effectiveness of behavioral targeting against content that wouldn't normally be on their short list.

While I'm older than most MySpace users, I've forwarded plenty of funny videos to my mom and sister-in-law. Dog on a skateboard? Absolutely. Guy falling off his horse? Forward. But what about when "boys being boys" forward videos to each other? Certainly there are brands that will forgive our low-brow and often grotesque sense of humor in exchange for some of our disposable income and brand favorability.

Consider a range of sites
Taking it to an extreme for the sake of making a point, what is an advertiser to do when ideal audiences start to wander into areas that some people might consider controversial? Once the targeting technology determines that you've found a male, 35-49 with an annual income well into the six-figures looking for a new SUV, why should an advertiser not take advantage of the available inventory on sites he visits? It's a win-win-win proposition. The advertiser reaches the right audience, the user gets relevant advertising, and the publisher gets higher CPMs or CPAs instead of serving an ad for Smiley Central.

I'm not advocating that media buyers run out and buy up inventory on adult sites (at least if they want to keep their jobs), but don't people with foot fetishes buy cars and need mortgages?

Contextually targeted sponsored listings hint at the level of accepted risk advertisers are willing to take. In a quick visit to some file sharing sites, I found numerous links to very highly respected technology brands alongside pirated software. Sponsored links for "SnakesOnAPlane.com" next to pirated versions of Pirates of the Caribbean available for download.  So the line that advertisers won't cross lies somewhere between piracy and porn? I'm just sayin'….

The true winner from the advances in targeting technology will be the niche publishers at the end of the tail, regardless of the content they produce. Bob's Baseball Blog can open his doors to a flood of advertising revenue in much the same fashion as Google's AdSense program, provided that it is easy enough for him to join a network or plug an ad module into his site. There are plenty of Wall Street types who are anxiously watching the minor-league trade deadline, and Bob deserves credit and revenue for reaching those people.

In the not too distant future, individual pieces of content could be considered a means to an end. Behaviorally targeted networks will reward marketers that have the deepest connections and understanding of their target audience with a virtually limitless supply of affordable inventory that today's media buyers would never deem worthy of their budgets. At the end of the long tail, the power is truly in the audience.

Corey Kronengold is senior marketing manager for 121Media. Read full bio.