There are many different kinds of behavioral targeting, from event based to site-side and beyond. Find out what you're missing.<BR>
Behavioral targeting is using knowledge about someone to improve the likelihood that they will favorably respond to an offer. But all we ever hear or talk about is behavioral targeting in terms of networks like TACODA or Advertising.com and their ability to target users with advertisements that will predictably display ads to people who may favorably click on an offer.
This is event-based targeting. A user lands on a series of pages on an advertiser's site, which are pixeled by the network. Based on their navigation experience, the user is said to have experienced "behaviors." Later, they can be targeted with advertisements across the network providing the behavioral bargeting based on the patterned experience they had on the advertiser's site.
But really there can be a many kinds of behavioral targeting. Behavioral targeting is targeting behavior based on knowledge gained about a person, and so we first create that knowledge and then second we use that knowledge.
Site-side analytics tracks the movement of people across a web site, patterned behaviors, buying habits, et cetera. Those behaviors can be used to position products and messages within a site using content management tools such as a CoreMetrics or WebSideStory, which has a site-side analytics tool with its own CMS built-in.
The best integrations are those that use first party cookies. If you place a first party cookie on a browser, the data written to that cookie can be shared between applications that operate using first party cookies. WebSideStory and WebTrends both do this. They write data to a first party cookie and then a content management tool, that also uses a first party cookie, can read the instructions in the cookie to position content based on those behavior patterns. That's behavioral targeting too.
Ad serving can also provide behavioral targeting. DoubleClick offers Boomerang, which is a third party cookie-based technology that leverages their prolific cookie across the web to target anonymous profiles. They can position the right ad in front of the right person based on previous ads that a person has seen and to which a person has reacted. That is behavioral targeting too.
First party ad serving can also be considered behavioral targeting. TruEffect offers DirectServe, which leverages first party-based cookie technology wherein the ad server targets cookies written by the advertiser. The eCRM system may write data about a user as a member of a customer segment to the browser or the site-side analytics (think WebSideStory) might write information about the anonymous patterned behavior to the browser, and the ad server can target the user with relevant ads.
These are all forms of behavioral targeting.
The cost-benefit of behavioral targeting becomes the next consideration. On networks, it is less of a consideration because you can usually get a pretty good deal. You will pay a premium when you hit a target, but then you will pay the typical cheap network rate when you don't. Since you will probably not find a huge target audience using behavioral targeting within just a network audience, your net cost won't be too bad. Third party, cookie-based ad server behavioral targeting can be more costly as it will be built into your CPM. You will pay it for all ads served. Watch that ROI!
Where the cost-effective aspects of behavioral targeting can become reasonable -- and where you should really sit on the edge of your seat -- is when you can look holistically at behavioral targeting from the web-side and site-side perspective complimentary. First party cookie technology can enable you to bring it all together: banner ads, search, landing pages, content and eCRM.
Banner ads can be served based on targeting instructions placed in cookies written by advertisers.
First-party cookies (advertiser cookies) can be written by ad servers to non-customers at either the banner serve point or when the search clickthrough experience takes place. When the user lands on the advertiser's site, the acquisition history is written into the browser space.
Landing page technology (like a CoreMetrics) can read the first party cookie and test landing pages with relevant content, and site-side analytics can integrate banner and search history stored in the cookies into their site-side reporting. This gives the advertiser a holistic view not only into what is happening within their site, but also outside onto the web. How someone became a lead, what sites they were on, what offers they saw and did respond to and did not respond to and what search terms drew them in all become visible. Finally, eCRM can read the cookies and -- at the point of login -- can create anonymous segment models for future marketing decisions.
You want the full picture? Behavioral targeting as event-based targeting is the tip of the iceberg.
Ari Kaufman is vice president of sales for TruEffect, will be joining LookSmart as vice president of publisher services in May 2007 and blogs at www.arikaufman.com - Advertising Online, Reactionary with Insight. Read full bio.