Media Buyer For Hire

Advertisers Weigh in on BT
July 19, 2006
By Dawn Anfuso More by this Author
We asked some Amelia Island iMedia Summit attendees their thoughts on behavorial targeting. Here's what they had to say.

What is the greatest advantage of behavioral targeting? In what part of the campaign process does it make the most sense?

Christine Bensen, Vice President, Media, Modem Media: One of the great strengths of behavioral targeting is that initially, it is a relatively easy sell. It makes logical sense. "We are going to use observed behaviors that have historically resulted in certain activities, as a predictive methodology to determine what will work for you." That statement is difficult to argue with until you have an experience to the contrary.

Stephen D. Kempisty, Director, Business Development, Flatiron Media: Behavioral targeting allows you to reach a consumer that has exhibited tendencies towards a specific behavior outside of the normal context for that behavior (i.e. beer ads to males in Webmail).

Lee Slovitt, Media Supervisor, Heartbeat Digital:Reaching users outside the "norm"-- you can give them a relevant ad in content unrelated to the brand.

Mark N. Dorf, Managing Partner, Acuity Media Group:One modality today with behavioral targeting… publisher side and network side. Network side behavioral targeting allows an advertiser to re-target and re-message a user. I am bullish on the ability to do sequential messaging and see a large growth area with that opportunity. Publisher side behavioral allows an advertiser to reach a consumer in areas that could be less expensive but just as targeted. For example, advertiser xyz is targeting the travel market. They want to place their ad on a website that has a travel section and (a) that section is sold out or (b) the CPM is too high to get the return the advertiser needs. These publishers can provide the advertiser the ability to reach the consumer that visited the travel section in another area knowing they have demonstrated a propensity to the travel section, thus having a higher probability of being receptive to their message at a better price point. Another potential added benefit is the advertiser won't be in a cluttered environment with many competitors most likely.

Jack Goldberg, President, Windy City Advertising, Inc.:Lower costs to reach the same target audience when they may not be expecting our message. This can also lead to less competitive ad clutter for our client's message.

Erik Harbison, Director of Performance Marketing, Refinery: Advantage-- being able to leverage existing offline audience data to develop targeted categories. This data will help validate if their audience's behavior offline matches online.
Assuming a client does not have much audience data, behavioral targeting could work best at a later phase once audience behavior is validated. With existing audience data, behavioral targeting would work best at launch of a campaign.

Is there a downside to BT? If so, what?

Christine Bensen, Vice President, Media, Modem Media: There are two potential downsides that come to mind. The first is the potential for it not to work, for a particular campaign, resulting in a loss of faith for the technology itself. The second is the possibility for another privacy scare in the public sector-- whether or not it is warranted.

Stephen D. Kempisty, Director, Business Development, Flatiron Media: It doesn't always work for DR advertisers; and can be a shock for some consumers if they realize the ads are being targeted towards them.

Lee Slovitt, Media Supervisor, Heartbeat Digital:Some users may wonder and find it offensive, but for the most part I think it's a good thing.

Mark N. Dorf, Managing Partner, Acuity Media Group:Over promising what it can do.

Jack Goldberg, President, Windy City Advertising, Inc.:Privacy concerns.

Jason Weidner, Director of Performance Marketing, Refinery: I believe that it is packaging unsold inventory -- ROS if you will -- with a fancy new buzz name. It is great for publishers, but in my mind, not too proven for advertisers.

Erik Harbison, Director of Performance Marketing, Refinery: While behavioral targeting has been around for a while, it still struggles to be more widely accepted by agencies. As of recent, it appears that anyone can start a behavioral targeting company, state that it is "different from ad.com" and ask for marketing dollars. Partnering with one rotten apple may ruin the reputation and adoption of behavioral targeting as a staple channel in an online marketing mix.
What's the next generation of targeting going to look like? What technologies and platforms should marketers look to embrace via BT?

Stephen D. Kempisty, Director, Business Development, Flatiron Media: I believe the next generation of behavioral targeting will be shaped by consumer's search behavior. This will influence how ads are served to them across a network or portal. Technologies and platforms may start speaking to each other more as technology providers distribute their cookies in new ways and form partnerships with publishers and ad-serving companies.

Mark N. Dorf, Managing Partner, Acuity Media Group:Marketing in the search field will be very popular-- the ability to re target someone that visited you from Google or Yahoo! for example and did not take the action you wanted. This is where sequential messaging will be a very powerful tool to use.

Jack Goldberg, President, Windy City Advertising, Inc.:I think targeting may evolve to permission being granted by consumers to show ads on content that is relevant to them. The control has to be placed in their hands so they can have the ability to see what information about them is being disclosed. They also must be allowed to share only the information they are comfortable disclosing. If I am in the market for a new car, I am more than happy to be served ads about new car deals. On the other hand, if I have an illness I do not want insurance companies or other prying eyes to know about this very private matter as it may affect my being approved for a new job or insurance coverage.

Erik Harbison, Director of Performance Marketing, Refinery: In addition to "targeting people" via banners, behavioral targeting companies are now focused on "re-marketing" to search traffic with text ads that appear similar to Google ad words listings. This appears to be a fairly new and untested technology. Networks are still gathering case studies for release. Only time will tell.

Dawn Anfuso is senior editor, iMedia Connection. Read full bio.