Behavioral Advertising Companies

For many businesses, behavioral targeting ads are becoming an increasingly important part of their overall marketing strategy for getting the companies' goods and services noticed by potential consumers. This type of advertising is being seen as a cost-effective way for businesses to develop brand awareness and grow market share to an ever-more sophisticated customer base. Behavioral advertising companies provide prospective clients with marketing strategies specifically geared to attract individuals whose recent internet usage indicates that they will be interested in the promoted product or service. This is accomplished with the use of technology that keeps track of what websites are visited by a particular computer through the use of ISP addresses and cookies. The information is analyzed and used to display advertisements related to those websites. For example, the software may track that the same computer accessed an online business selling skiing equipment and a website containing an article on tips for the beginning skier. When the individual goes to a third website, perhaps one for booking airline tickets, an ad promoting budget ski vacations appears. This is a very simplistic example -- techniques for behavioral targeting ads are much more sophisticated in determining an individual's personal demographic. Besides the user's interests in particular topics, the software may analyze the person's gender, age range, and likely median income. With this technological advance, it is possible for two different internet users to see two very different advertisements for dissimilar products or services even though both are on the same website at the same time.

Most current online marketing is known as contextual advertising. The advertising networks place advertisements for products on websites that are somehow related to that product. This is why a person reading the online sports pages of a metropolitan newspaper may see ads for sports equipment or sporting events. These same ads most likely will not appear on the newspaper's online food pages (unless, perhaps, that week's recipes are for football tailgating parties). Internet users see advertisements in the context of the websites that they are visiting. These ads are more relevant and cost-effective than what is known as run-of-site ad placement. Run-of-site advertisements have no relevance or context to the websites on which they appear and are most often seen as annoying and a nuisance by internet users. Behavioral targeting ads take contextual advertising to a new level because they are based on websites that an individual visits, the keywords that an individual uses in internet searches, and/or the content of pages the individual accesses. The behavioral advertising companies can even use software that tracks past visitors to a specific website and design a marketing campaign especially for these potential customers that will motivate them to purchase the promoted product or service. The benefits of behavioral advertising are obvious. Since the marketing campaign is geared to specific people who have already shown an interest in the goods or services, the conversion rates (the ratio of visitors who become customers) are higher. Since it takes fewer ad impressions to get visitors to click-through tot he advertiser's website, the ads are more cost-effective for the advertising company.

Though the benefits are clear, behavioral advertising companies still have obstacles to overcome. Though the technology monitors website visits from the same computer, it cannot distinguish who is using the computer. When multiple people use the same machine, the behavior and demographics are skewed. This often happens when members of the same family use the same computer. Mom may see advertisements for video games, in which she has no interest, after her teenage son has been online checking out reviews for the latest must-have gaming system. Another obstacle may be described as a battle between technologies. Many internet users, concerned about their privacy, utilize computer settings or ad-blocking software programs that keep cookies from being downloaded into their systems or that automatically clear the cookies on a routine basis. Cookies are useful for websites that require the user to log in with a username and password, such as those of financial institutions and credit card companies. By using cookies, a bank's website may require an accountholder to provide additional information, such as answering a security question, when accessing the site from a different computer than the one used originally. This actually protects the accountholder. In the Old Testament book of Proverbs, we find this verse: "I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions" (Proverbs 8:12). Internet users need to educate themselves on issues such as these so that they can make good decisions about the cookie settings and any routine clearing of the cookie files.

The strategy of using behavioral targeting ads is becoming more prominent, especially by large businesses, and the revenue of targeted online display advertising is expected to increase tremendously in the next few years. Behavioral advertising companies are taking advantage of the scales and efficiencies that the targeted model offers them. By retaining a behavioral ad network, a company turns over their online marketing strategy to a business that can access multiple sites, test ads, track users, and identify past visitors. Proper analysis of all this data lead to higher click-through and conversion rates for the advertiser. In addition, marketing consultants believe that surfers on the internet are not as annoyed by advertisements of products and services in which they have an interest. Therefore, web surfers are more likely to click on the ads and visit the advertiser's website. If the site appeals to the visitor, a sale may be transacted. The advertiser gains a new customer based on the targeted advertisements.

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