Industry: Pharmaceuticals

Scenario: The same person visits the "new baby" section of a parenting site and an online furniture store researching cribs. A sleeping aid product marketer could target this person at these sites, familiarizing them with their brand. (See "BT and Life-Event Marketing.") 

For the pharmaceutical industry, as with the diet/wellness sector, the key use of behavioral targeting is not to reach a consumer during a specific point in the buying cycle, but rather to brand to potential consumers cost-effectively.

"The cost of indication-specific placements is increasing by leaps and bounds, and inventory isn't increasing at the same rate. Health content is becoming more expensive and more competitive. As advertisers, we need to look at strategic ways to reach our target market outside the normal contextual health placements. By using BT to reach our target outside health, we are increasing frequency at a much more efficient rate," says Lee Slovitt, media supervisor for Heartbeat Digital. His clients include Abbott Labs, GSK, UCB and Organon.

Although Slovitt doesn't currently use behavioral targeting for direct response initiatives, he believes that clicks that come from BT are more qualified than those that do not, and thus suspects conversion rates would be slightly higher on BT clicks than non-BT clicks.