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Monday 23 June 2008, 12:09 AM
Behavioural Targeting Set To Explode
We’ve all seen it before. Clicking into your favourite Web site will more than likely serve up a promotion for the product that you’ve already had for the past 12 months. Going online to your mobile provider to top-up our account, only to be shown a promotion for the handset that you bought last month.
The next evolution in online advertising is set to change all this. Behavioural targeting - a buzzword that’s been kicking around in online advertising from way back in 2005 - will change the face of delivering messages to potential customers. Presently, throwing up an ad from an IT services company, for instance, next to a review about a desktop computer is primitive. What these companies who spend lots of advertising cash really want to know is who these people are who are reading the articles and how can they target them individually.
Behavioural targeting is an advertising methodology in which an advertiser’s creative is shown to users based on the sites they visit and/or what the user does on those sites. In other words, incorporating behavioural data about each visitor in real-time to serve more effective product offers and sales messages. The network or publisher creates behavioural segments based on where the user has gone and/or what they have done on various Web pages.
These are typically broad-based descriptions like ‘gamers’ or ‘IT managers’, but they can also be very specific to an advertiser like ‘Users who put items in their shopping cart, but did not check out’. Another example is a segment based on users who have searched for an advertiser’s company name or product name. Finally, it can involve creating business rules to address specific visitor scenarios.
Running a few commercial Web sites myself, I know that online advertisers are increasingly becoming more demanding. It’s a total pain in the ass and requires lots of backend technology, but the rewards can be much greater than general advertisements. These companies who advertise really want to know who are reading your articles, and how they can target them. Where did they log in from? How often do they visit and at what time of day? What browser do they use when they visit? What do they do on the site? All of that information will help them determine at what point in the content consumption cycle they can most successfully target the reader.
Behavioural targeting, as far as I can see it, is the future of online advertising. And if you’re a publisher that runs its business based on advertising, you need to start looking at solutions that will help you to answer all of your advertisers’ questions. If you don’t, you may find that your clients start getting their questions answered by your competitors.
The next evolution in online advertising is set to change all this. Behavioural targeting - a buzzword that’s been kicking around in online advertising from way back in 2005 - will change the face of delivering messages to potential customers. Presently, throwing up an ad from an IT services company, for instance, next to a review about a desktop computer is primitive. What these companies who spend lots of advertising cash really want to know is who these people are who are reading the articles and how can they target them individually.
Behavioural targeting is an advertising methodology in which an advertiser’s creative is shown to users based on the sites they visit and/or what the user does on those sites. In other words, incorporating behavioural data about each visitor in real-time to serve more effective product offers and sales messages. The network or publisher creates behavioural segments based on where the user has gone and/or what they have done on various Web pages.
These are typically broad-based descriptions like ‘gamers’ or ‘IT managers’, but they can also be very specific to an advertiser like ‘Users who put items in their shopping cart, but did not check out’. Another example is a segment based on users who have searched for an advertiser’s company name or product name. Finally, it can involve creating business rules to address specific visitor scenarios.
Running a few commercial Web sites myself, I know that online advertisers are increasingly becoming more demanding. It’s a total pain in the ass and requires lots of backend technology, but the rewards can be much greater than general advertisements. These companies who advertise really want to know who are reading your articles, and how they can target them. Where did they log in from? How often do they visit and at what time of day? What browser do they use when they visit? What do they do on the site? All of that information will help them determine at what point in the content consumption cycle they can most successfully target the reader.
Behavioural targeting, as far as I can see it, is the future of online advertising. And if you’re a publisher that runs its business based on advertising, you need to start looking at solutions that will help you to answer all of your advertisers’ questions. If you don’t, you may find that your clients start getting their questions answered by your competitors.
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