Behavioral Ad Targeting
January 14th, 2008
Adweek reports today that there is a rise in the interest of companies that track online behaviors and help advertisers focus in on these “targets” to market to bring advertising to their virtual doorstep based on many different methods.
“…with some betting on new methods to get a fuller view of customer behavior from the current cookie-reliant methods used by behavioral systems. Other new players see a chance to use purchase activity as a more direct indicator of interests, or sophisticated psychographic analysis to find likely targets for brand advertisers. Still other new companies are looking to marry the current vogue for social media and word-of-mouth marketing to discover product influencers.”
A newcomer to the game, NebuAd, is actually tracking users across all their web activities, including search.
For example, if I’m searching online for a new car and am on a site that is comparing the Audi R8 and the BMW M6 (hey, I can dream, can’t I?), an online behavioral company tracks where I’m clicking and what I’m interested in. The next time I log in to a Yahoo! owned site, well-oh-well, there’s a banner ad from BMW and that shiny new M6 I’ve been lusting after.
And as for any wonder-fix, there’s some controversy out there with – you guessed it – privacy. These tracking companies claim that they don’t collect data who the person is they are tracking nor stores the data. But it seems that not everyone is convinced that’s the case.
I can see both sides of this one. Advertisers are more and more desperate for information about their possible customers and a tool like this one would allow them to spend their dollars more wisely (supposedly). On the other hand, do I really want “big brother” watching my every click?
Other posts by Spike.
olivier blanchard says:
Privacy is an illusion. Just hope that more targeted advertising will mean less spam (I would much rather see banner ads that interest me than banner ads that just waste page space and give me headaches).
As for big brother, we aren’t far from a day when the Patriot Act will enable law enforcement agencies to access your laptop remotely without your knowledge or permission and spy on you “live.” (The Germans were already using built-in laptop cameras to observe “suspects” while they were working at their computers as of a year ago. A high court put an end to the practice pretty quickly, but the point is that government agencies already have that capability.
Blogging naked is thus discouraged… or encouraged, depending on what point you’re trying to make.
Scary… but kind of cool at the same time.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pmScott White says:
I agree with Oliver. If they’re showing me stuff I’m interested in then I like it.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:24 am