As automotive inventory fills up, you run the risk of turning ad dollars away. Advertising.com's James Smith presents an elegant way to ease the supply/demand conflict within the online automotive world.

Advertisers have a seemingly insatiable appetite for inventory on third-party automotive sites like Autobytel.com, Cars.com and Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com-- premium sites where in-market consumers flock. But the inventory shortfall is striking. According to AdRelevance, less than half of automotive advertising dollars and less than 25 percent of automotive advertising impressions go to these endemic automotive sites because there simply isn't enough inventory to support increased efforts. Advertisers spend all they can on endemic sites, then reluctantly go elsewhere. Those "elsewhere" dollars represent loss of a significant financial opportunity for publishers. But there is a simple -- and underutilized -- way to capture some of that external spending: behavioral marketing.

Easy money
Behavioral marketing enables publishers to tap into additional ad revenue despite sold-out inventory by selling their audience-- not just their ad space. Behavioral vendors pay a percentage of revenue earned to the endemic publisher for access to user behaviors (i.e., conducting research into minivans on their site).

By giving advertisers access to a desired audience, and publishers effortless revenue, behavioral marketing is an elegant way to ease the supply/demand conflict within the online automotive world. And it's that kind of economic sense that has made behavioral targeting one of the hottest trends of 2006 across industries. eMarketer estimates that marketers will spend $1.2 billion on behaviorally targeted online advertising in 2006; by 2008, behavioral spending is poised to exceed $2 billion. Additionally, nearly 20.8 percent of all media buys in 2006 are expected to be behavioral. With the impressive expected growth of this popular online trend, publishers have ample opportunity to leverage their online audience populations to capture many of those marketing dollars.

The key for automotive publishers is network behavioral targeting, which enables advertisers to reach consumers demonstrating desired behaviors across a third-party network of websites-- providing highly targeted reach without sacrificing volume (and delivering significantly higher response rates). In the automotive world, for example, advertisers can reach users who have visited a desirable but sold-out automotive site across a broad network. So, even if an advertiser can't buy inventory on Autobytel.com, the same ad can be served to the same potential minivan buyer at Toys.com.
      
The myth of risk
So what's the problem? Why are publishers often reluctant to share behavioral populations and tap into this revenue? The most common reason is that they fear sharing this information will cannibalize their own advertisers. But these fears are largely unfounded. Advertisers have consistently preferred endemic, inventory and will likely spend their budgets on those placements first. Behavioral solutions will be an attractive supplement for advertisers to incorporate into their campaigns, but it will unlikely never replace the attraction of the real thing. Ultimately, behavioral marketing enables publishers to monetize not just their advertising inventory, but also their audience.

The bottom line
Premium publishers - especially in the automotive market - have little to fear and everything to gain from behavioral marketing. Behavioral is a great way to enhance all an overall marketing buy.

Behavioral marketing is a no-risk, virtually effortless way to overcome inventory constraints, generate additional revenue, and provide advertisers with the audience they really want-- yours.

James Smith is chief of publisher services at Advertising.com. Read full bio.