When you’re in a conversation and somebody uses this term, your first question should be… is this on-site or display ad behavioral targeting?

Typically, when referring to banner ads, behavioral targeting relates to the use of data regarding consumer behavior that’s learned across numerous domains. I’ve tracked a new industry group that’s tasked with defining standards and definitions for behavioral targeting, Behavioral Targeting Standards Consortium (BTSC). After reviewing the site once again before this post, it’s interesting that they don’t have any content yet regarding the accomplishment of this objective. Seems like it would be somewhat simple to define a market in broad terms, guess not.

On-site behavioral targeting is often times referred to simply as on-site targeting. Typically, it relates to individual consumer information that’s used to segment and them either serve a different experience on a website or measure the difference in reaction to particular aspects of a site by each segment.

This distinction is critical because it demonstrates how young the discourse is in the online industry. The idea that two words can mean very different things to two people who share a similar role should be rather concerning. And, is likely why we have confusion around many subjects.

Much has been written about on-site consumer behavior and its applicability to targeting programs. Despite this, little is really known about types of behaviors that are tracked or trackable, and which ones are truly indicators of or useful as a high-value targeting mechanism. It’s possible that we’ve over-inflated the importance of behavior and overlooked other things that should be considered. And, in doing this, headed towards a focus on a technology solution that relies upon the use of highly personal consumer information to fuel its’ engine… raising the concern of consumer protection groups and the governments of many countries.

Types of behaviors that are tracked or track-able:

• On-site, single domain behavior - probably the least contentious source of data, easily believed by consumers as a valuable source of data to help marketers connect with consumers. Often called re-marketing, in a recent MediaPost article, Jeff Hirsch, the CEO of Revenue Science and Behavioral Targeting Standards Consortiumfounding member, specifically stated that this a limited version of behavioral targeting.
• Cross-domain behavior - algorithms consume a large quantity of data, including searches, product views, and domains visited in the attempt to identify a sense of interest on the part of an individual consumer so a marketer can target ad messages. The aggregation of this data can occur via cookie tracking across a network or more recently there’s been attempts to validate the process of intercepting and interpreting all web activity from ISPs (i.e. NebuAd), creepy.

However, in all the dialog about behavior, what other data points are available that marketers can use as targeting methodology? Or, from a more important strategic perspective, what is the objective of a marketing program and which data points can help the marketer accurately identify and target?

My assertion is that other data points are more effective at targeting, achieving marketer objectives. Here’s why I say this:

• Today, only a minor portion of display ad spending is funded towards behavioral targeting. Display ads are largely brand oriented. Marketers tend to choose domains as their primary targeting mechanism. Behavioral targeting comes too late in the purchase cycle to affect brand preference and attitude, it’s more of a “hail-mary” or a direct response tool.
• Virtually no on-site targeting is the result of multi-domain data aggregation.

What other data points are available, without any fancy technology:

• Geography, language, and season - these have been used for generations in the offline environment very successfully, why don’t we use them on line more often? The interesting point is that these data points are largely available to everyone with very limited technology constraints. Between a site visitors IP address and their browser settings, these data points are easy to use. Whether display ad or on-site targeting, these are available today.
• Returning customer or new prospect - again, these are largely available to marketers today. Why not use them? Certainly, every marketer would like to speak to a new prospect in different terms than they would an existing customer.

In a later post I’ll try to talk about targeting options that require more sophisticated technology. Until then, send me your thoughts!

Mark

Engagement. Not only is it the theme of the forum, it’s a solid description of the participants and our hosts… Engaged.

Recap of the keynote presentations…
Brian Haven kicked things off with a great presentation…

Engagement = fundamentally a different view of customers. Engagement is about relevance. It’s about developing strategies to find, monitor, measure and leverage the opinions and behaviors of a brands’ interaction with their market influencers.

Engagement model:

The emphasis of this model is to change the marketers view of the customer and the company’s relationship with them. The new view is a dialog. A dialog that involve motivated customers and gain their interaction with an organizations brand. The inner circle describes the process from the consumers perspective.

Mark

“…The sluggish economy is punctuating a cultural shift enabled by wired consumers accustomed to comparing prices and bargaining online, said Nancy F. Koehn, a retail historian at the Harvard Business School… Call it the eBay phenomenon…“

This quote is from an excellent article in the 3/23/08 New York Times. The author, Matt Richtell, sites quotes from spokes people and shoppers of stores including Home Depot, Ralph Lauren, Best Buy, and Circuit City. As well as analysts from Wachovia and Pacific Crest Securities.

Highlighted is the point that this is revolutionary as consumers shifted away from haggling as a method of conducting purchases back in the 1850’s. 

This is a great example of the consumer empowerment theme of this blog. In the ”About” section I described it further… driven by the adoption of technology and acquisition of the “perfect knowledge” typically held by the brand marketer, consumers have turned the hand of marketing teams for leading retailers. The NYT author described it as “…Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a slowing economy…”

It’s interesting to read examples of how consumers executed two key strategies:

1. Online research -> developing a target product selection and then research prices. These prices were then used as ammo to drive sales people on the retail floor to lower their prices.
2. Play “good cop / bad cop” with sales people.

In the end, consumers and their changing habits have changed the course for their relationship with selected brands. In this case, lowering prices.

Love to hear your thoughts -

Mark

(be-hav-ior-al  de-cay) A new term that describes the rate at which a behaviorally targeted experience becomes irrelevant to the recipient. This rate is affected by the perceived value of the targeted experience, the perceived value of the desired outcome, and the degree of consideration involved with the activity.

When developing a targeting campaign, consider the lifespan you should attach to any given experience. Delivering a targeted experience beyond the user determined expectation for that message is not a positive to the recipient, and very well may be a negative.

A marketers’ world has typically changed with the turn of generations. However, the past 10 years have produced a chasm of change that have left many marketers reeling in their attempt to adapt.

Early on in the Internet era, people used to joke about “Internet years”, implying that time moved even faster than dog years.

The issue at hand is that online marketers built organizational structures and strategy that were built upon a premise that did not include learned marketing principle, even beyond the “dot bomb” days. Rather than focusing on targeting consumers and their needs, they focused on the optimization and development of technology or communication channels, such as email, banner ads or website.

Today, most online marketers are trying to manage systems that are not designed to address the problems of the day. The issue at hand is a massive shift in the needs and intellect of a consuming public, the developed systems view consumers as a more or less homogeneous group, leveraging the relationship with each across numerous silos. None of which can effectively leverage the learning of the other, or extend the relationship with customers beyond individual transactions.

I have to imagine that any CMO or CEO reading this blog entry would be hard pressed to support their current organizational, technology or budgetary systems as being sufficient. Hind sight is almost always 20/20. However, I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that the solution be a completely disruptive innovation.

As with most things in life, the 80/20 rule is a good approach to leading change. Start with the areas of your business that are most valuable from the perspective of the end recipient, the prospect or customer. Decompose your processes and high-value communication threads, across communication channels, and find the appropriate opportunities to continue a dialog. The solution doesn’t need to be end-to-end, especially from the beginning. Focus on the areas that are high-value and build your approach over time.

In the end, the leading issue to solve is strategic approach. Most companies have an organizational investment in channel based communications, while the solution lies in consumer based needs - acquisition, retention/up-sell.

I’d love to hear your thoughts -

Mark

I once met an old man who was the first grocery store owner to use shopping carts, in what is now a rather large metropolitan market. This conversation has stuck in my mind for many years because this person was a true revolutionary.

Today, we take his dilemma for granted, but in that time shoppers were accustomed to handing a list to a shopkeeper and for that person to collect the items. From the moment in time where he brought shopping carts in to the store and opened up the aisles for others to browse in, he both opened up a whole new chapter in consumer oriented marketing and he had to figure out how to entice his shoppers to do what might have been considered work for others to do. It was a huge hurdle to overcome.

In many regards, he faced more difficult problems than what we faced in the genesis of online retail adoption and development of marketing principles. He didn’t have to figure out how to get consumers to use a virtual shopping cart rather than a physical one, he had to figure out how to get consumers to actually learn to shop.

It’s precisely these types of stories we need to remember when we feel we don’t have guiding innovators, or that we have insurmountable problems. In fact, many of the principles we use today in online marketing are directly parallel to what these same retail grocers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers faced well over 60 years ago: how do we differentiate a product, who is the target audience, and how do we affect or aid in the transition of consumer behavior?

I’d love to hear your thoughts -

Mark

Recently I read that a kid entering middle school today has been subject to more information than a scholar of the late 19th century. Information and commercial communications are bombarding consumers at an unheard of rate, and it’s only escalating.

The adoption of technology, specifically the Internet, has empowered consumers who are now able to amass the “perfect knowledge” previously thought to be held by brand marketers. In the past, these marketers would gather this information and then sift it through their “brand filter” to distill the appropriate message, shining a kind light on their offering for their target audience. Today, these same consumers have access to the “unfiltered” information and a marketers job is forever changed.

Consumers now have the ability to transcend traditional boundaries of geography, time, and communication channel to gather their own impression of a marketers offering. This empowerment has increased their savvy, creating less patient consumers who simply expect more from their trusted brands.

This consumer transition can be viewed as a parallel relationship between the adoption of technology and both the increase of visitor knowledge and the inpatients it has rendered to consumers. Through this transition, consumer reaction to and consumption of traditional communications has dropped. The really unfortunate thing is that marketers have reacted to this by doing more of what was becoming less efficient, trying to beat their message into the minds of their target audience. In turn, this increase in the communications drum beat is further deafening the ear of consumers. Making the whole issue even worse.

I’d love to hear your thoughts -

Mark

Much has been written about the groundswell of participation in social commerce initiatives. This technology has become a new channel of communication for many organizations, providing a great way for their consumers to contribute content for their peers consideration and a great way for marketers to hear how well they’re doing in their relationship with their customers.

I have to ask the question… is this really what consumers see this functionality as? I don’t think so. My belief is that consumer participation in social commerce initiatives is more an indicator of their core need to see relevant content. They feel so strongly about this need that they’re willing to write the damn content themselves.

Years ago the web promised to be the relevant content that consumers were going to flock towards, yet to this point, most of the relevant content on the web has either been delivered via a self described need on the part of the consumer (i.e. search engines - enter a keyword, get relevant content), or consumer generated content (i.e. social commerce or networks). So, where have the marketers been in this equation? On the sidelines..

Regardless of whether or not my point is accurate, the cat is out of the bag. Consumers have a ton of control over the success of marketing initiatives and marketers are left trying to figure out strategy in a new world of consumer empowerment.

Love to hear your thoughts -

Mark

I’ve read articles and blog replies where others try to distinguish between the terms personalization and targeting, referring to personalization as one-to-one and targeting as one-to-many. As a person who has actually created terms and pioneered strategy in this marketplace, I see the two as more or less synonymous with far fewer distinguishing dimensions than others see.

While trying to create a communications strategy for Kefta’s multi-channel personalization solutions, we determined early on that we wanted to distance ourselves from the failed software based personalization solutions of the late ’90s. They were an expensive, IT driven failure. The key failure was that they were too “heavy” a solution to ever get off of the ground. From a marketing strategy perspective, they were a failure because they relied upon users to self express differences before they could start targeting content, and they simply served a different message, as if that was supposed to be better than the original message.

Targeting became a term that was descriptive yet avoided a reference to the prior perceived failures of what was called personalization in the late ’90s. Using this learning as a guidepost, we landed on ”dynamic targeting”. Prior to our use of this term, little was used with reference to targeting and no one in the online marketing space had ever used the combined term “dynamic targeting”.

Today, few people use the term personalization as a description of a type of technology. It’s more frequently used as describing a type of experience, leveraging the term personal. Beyond that, personalization has been a dead term and trying to describe it beyond it’s prior history is futile.

Love to hear your thoughts -

 Mark