There has been an increased demand for behavioral targeting campaigns due to a variety of changes in the online landscape. The lack of availability for contextually related inventory and the ability to identify users in a state of current need and activity have given advertisers access to audiences during their entire online experiences.

Behavioral targeting technology has the ability to make most irrelevant inventory relevant and allows users to see a relevant ad in an unrelated context. These qualities have been shown to ultimately give campaigns a higher lift. At the end of the day, behavioral targeting enables marketers to get closer to their dreams of one-to-one relationships by simply being more relevant to the consumer’s needs.

Our industry has recognized that many major publishers now offer behavioral targeting components in their ad inventories. In addition, the number of behavioral targeting networks has increased over the recent years; or should I say they decreased again recently with the great TACODA acquisition by AOL?

Let's take a look at how this great technology can be extended beyond your ad campaign.

Applications
The biggest application of behavioral targeting is using this technology on your website. The options are endless, but one application that we have found to be effective with our clients is banner ad campaigns where website traffic behavior can be placed into pre-defined buckets. You can then analyze your traffic data and identify the most typical user paths. Hopefully they display activities that are of value to your organization, but if not, then my immediate recommendation is to change the structure of your site. Ideally, activities should be linked to a success event, such as sale, signup or download, yet they can also be related to time spent in certain areas of your site.

Author notes: Andreas Roell is CEO/president of Geary Interactive. Read full bio.