When it comes to behavioral targeting, advertisers are deploying multiple techniques in an attempt to further capture the potential that behavioral targeting has to offer.
The problem advertisers face today is that each technology currently operates within a silo environment. That is the result of different third-party cookies. The data generated from each technique is not readily transferable, and therefore the ability to react to the results from one technique combined with another does not exist. They are all speaking different languages. There is no communication between the CRM design and ad server targeting. Event-based network targeting has no communicative impact on site-level content management, and site-side analytics has no external view into acquisition marketing generated by advertising.
When an advertiser leverages a network like TACODA or Advertising.com to conduct event-based behavioral targeting, they are attempting to capture prospects or existing customers based on anonymous behavioral events, such as a succession of page experiences.
The dislocated architecture of the advertiser and network prevents integration. Advertisers rely on site-side analytics and content management systems (CMS) to promote behavioral targeting capabilities on their websites. These technologies also largely use third-party cookies and cannot connect with the event-based targeting that is conducted by the networks on their behalf out on the web. So a WebTrends has no view into what a Revenue Science is doing. It’s like a brick wall between the techniques.
Advertisers also use third-party ad servers to deploy behavioral targeting. DoubleClick’s Boomerang is a great example of this. Unlike a network, the ad server is web-wide. But again, almost all ad servers are relying on their third-party ad server cookies, like the ad network cookie and the site-side targeting cookie, which cannot communicate with another technology.
The kitchen sink
This mentality describes advertisers who know there are more ways to deploy behavioral targeting and choose to deploy them all to figure out what works. It may not even be intentional, but the result is a dysfunctional set of technologies that don’t integrate or benefit from the value of one another. At first it may have been just Tacoda, Advertising.com, Boomerang or a site-side technology like Omniture, WebSideStory or WebTrends. But now these technologies are all in play at the same time.
The silos between the technologies are producing discrepancies, and the inherent limitation of each technology renders an advertiser blind in the decision-making process from one technique to the next when they could be leveraging each other to make very powerful decisions.
The solution
The solution is a common cookie that is used by the advertiser, written by each technique and read by each technology so that all may benefit from the information generated by the other. First-party cookies imply the utilization of the advertiser’s primary cookie by all associated vendors: ad servers, networks, CRM, site-side analytics and content management. A first-party cookie can serve as a common translator with which each technology can communicate. It can break the silo walls and enable an advertiser to integrate various techniques and leverage the knowledge from one technology to benefit the other.