Five highly influential names in publishing deliver opinions on how behavioural targeting has rapidly evolved in the U.K.

In my role I am fortunate to work with many of the top publishers and agencies in the U.K. market. Looking ahead to 2008, I have spent time with the key online ad sales leaders at these companies to get their views and outlook on the year. So instead of sharing my predictions with you, I'd like to share their views on how behavioural targeting (BT) will grow and evolve in 2008. It is my hope that this will help inform your decisions about how to benefit from behavioural targeting -- whether you're an agency, advertiser or publisher.

Stuart Colman, group head U.K. digital, Financial Times
Behavioural targeting has matured significantly over 2006 and 2007 and now represents a fundamental element of most digital campaigns. Agencies and clients, led by media owners, have become more and more sophisticated at setting up segments that deliver specifically against the campaign targets and objectives that have led to its increased importance on schedules.

2008 represents an interesting year for behavioural targeting. With the predicted advertising troubles ahead, focused and successful campaigns are going to be a priority for advertisers and behavioural targeting is perfectly placed to deliver this. The most interesting development will surely be the promise of BT networks, either intergroup (such as the Sun and the Times) or even between competing media owners themselves (such as the Guardian and the Telegraph), where individual data is shared to create 'uber' groups of BT targets who have displayed similar behaviour across a range of media owner sites. If the media owners get this right, it could provide advertisers with an incredibly strong and successful targeting opportunity.

Tristan Leaver, head of business development, Guardian Unlimited
Behavioural targeting is now firmly established as a key part of our clients' targeting repertoires, and their behavioural targeting campaigns are no longer 'tests'. Now we're collaborating with, rather than educating, clients about the opportunities available, and a large chunk of our inventory -- both display and recruitment -- is behaviourally targeted. Closed networks are an interesting area for us in the coming year -- sharing our users' behaviour with other publishers with similar audience profiles and expanding the inventory available to our customers by serving ads to users across other premium sites.

Bruce Daisley, digital sales director, Emap
2008 will see behavioural targeting enter a new stage of maturity. Until now the term has been too easily misused by some suppliers for 'retargeting' (serving a second ad to someone who has been previously exposed). In 2008 the technologies that can truly differentiate consumer behaviour are going to be set apart from the pack on this. Behavioural suppliers that help identify valuable audience segments are going to be most highly prized by advertisers and media owners alike.

Ed Couchman, group commercial manager, new media, Channel4
Behavioural targeting is entering a fascinating year. It's gained traction and credibility with both media owners and media agencies. It now has a presence on a significant number of buying schedules. Of course, this has resulted in an increase in interest, with new players entering the market. I still feel behavioural targeting needs to cement its position in media schedules and to fulfill its potential -- I would view this at circa 15 per cent of all digital display spend. There must be more market-wide case studies and accurate measurement from the IAB, something we must all take responsibility for.

From a broadcaster standpoint, I believe behavioural targeting has a key role to play within the video market. A number of commentators have announced the death of the pre-roll. I believe we can make the pre-roll work harder by making it more relevant to the user by adding targeting filters -- a critical one being behavioural targeting. We can deliver a mortgage pre-roll to a user who has just read a home buying guide on 4Homes and just watched Sarah Beeny explaining how to maximise the value of your home when selling. That's a powerful indicator to an audience who are active home buyers and a valuable to the advertising community.

Jamie Madill, head of sales, Reuters Consumer Media
We've been successfully using behavioural targeting for many years now and approx 15 per cent of all our sales have a behavioural targeting component within them. I see this percentage continuing to grow for Reuters in 2008 as more clients and agencies accept the benefits of the improved targeting capabilities and response rates that behavioural targeting offers. In addition, the discussions last year between premium publishers offering advertisers the ability to target user segments across a closed network of sites will become reality. This will allow advertisers to target campaigns to a wider premium audience on multiple sites -- something that I know many agencies are excited about. Mobile ad sales is becoming more sophisticated and the ability to behaviourally target on specific mobile sites or across a mobile network is definitely the next big opportunity in this space. 

As you can see, the two main themes are that behavioural targeting has become an established technology in the U.K., and that you can expect to see more collaboration between publishers and across new technologies, which will greatly benefit agencies and advertisers alike. So this means that 2008 will prove to be a year of innovation and excitement for behavioural targeting in the U.K.

Many thanks to our clients who contributed such great comments and thoughts, and for all of our clients who realised such amazing growth through 2007. 

Do you have any additional feedback, or do you have any different thoughts for 2008? If so, I’d love to hear and share them too. Very best of luck to all of you in 2008 -- it is going to be an exciting year in online in the U.K.!
 
Jeremy Mason is managing director, European operations for Revenue Science, Inc.