Originally published on
NetPlus Marketing’s co-founder anticipates that direct and brand marketing will begin to merge, with direct marketers focusing on integration and relevancy.
It is hard to believe that we are still talking about marketing in terms of “direct marketing” and/or “brand marketing.” We want to harness and apply the valuable principles that each discipline and approach provides, yet the vernacular can be limiting because of the predisposed assumptions that the terms carry. The time has come to get over it!
And we are& Direct marketers and brand marketers are starting to explore and execute their unique strengths and perspectives to embrace those disciplines that at one time would have been considered outside their practice. The shift is happening in actual practice, driven by the benefits that interactive marketing brings to all marketers. So does what we call it really matter?
As we follow and move through this evolution in 2007, what can we expect from direct marketing?
Direct marketers will talk the talk but walk a bit differently
The first thing to expect in 2007 is that the “talk” will continue to be couched under the umbrella of direct marketing despite actual shifts in practice. Direct marketers are moving more dollars online with a renewed focus on the consumer, integration, and re-directed definitions of accountability. Parallel to this discussion there will be increasing overlap in trends, focus and initiatives in both the brand and direct marketing camps.
Integrated marketing will make advancements
While direct marketers have flocked to email marketing as a natural extension of their historical focus on direct mail, advancements in email and other interactive disciplines are driving testing and implementation across different channels.
Marketers are becoming more flexible with how they view different platforms, vehicles and their roles in the marketing mix. Direct marketers are expanding their use of the catalog, the website and other marketing channels. What may have once been primarily viewed as an ordering mechanism or direct sales channel is now being cultivated for multiple purposes while still retaining a focus on measurement and ROI.
In response to this, content is also playing a more major role as a contributor to driving ROI.
Shift in business models and measurement
Digital marketing has clearly made it to the C-level suite, but many companies are still struggling with how to respond to the change in dynamics in their business planning. Many marketers — but particularly direct marketers — are working with a fixed budget that was developed in the C-level suite rather than in response to testing and opportunity, which demands a more rolling type of budgeting and forecasting. The fixed budget approach is being challenged as marketers deliver proven tests, but it challenges many organizations at the highest level, creating necessary dialogue and intersections between operations, finance and marketing. The approach to metrics, budget setting and management — and even how to measure the success of a business — are being re-evaluated. The mass adoption of the internet and digital networks requires organizations to adapt different processes and approaches to how we share and manage information across the enterprise. One of the most significant impacts is the evolution of metrics.
Originally published on
It’s easy to point a finger at publishing partners when the results of a behavioral targeting campaign don’t meet expectations. It’s harder to look at the numerous factors that influence campaign results to ascertain where the true problems lie. Just as a behavioral targeting campaign must be reviewed and analyzed on a consistent basis, so too do all the other variables that can make or break a campaign. This review should spur optimization efforts across a host of variables to drive the continuous improvement cycles for which online marketing is uniquely enabled.
Behavioral targeting is a powerful media tactic designed to identify and deliver a relevant audience. If this were the only important factor in campaign success, or if it stood alone as a critical factor, life would be a lot simpler. Sure, creative and messaging play a vital role in performance, as do publishers’ placements, sites, and targeting technology. Skill level and publishers’ attentiveness in crafting and managing a behavioral targeting buy can also have a tremendous impact on results.
Influential factors extend beyond a media buy’s basic elements, and control of these elements often lies with the agency or client. Ultimately, all parties are responsible for ensuring each piece of the mix is optimized to produce thebest possible results.
Media Don’t Stand Alone
Consider the broad range of potential contributing factors to an online media campaign’s results, including:
*User Experience:
— How is the Web site functioning?
— Are landing pages loading properly?
— Is the search function prominently placed?
— Has the site conversion rate increased or decreased?
— What can you do to affect conversion rate?
*Organic search results: have you invested properly in SEO (define) to ensure search listing visibility to drive increased site traffic and create additional retargeting impressions?
*Buying habits:
— Has there been a shift in consumer buying habits or spending power that might impact the amount of revenue generated?
— Does seasonality have an effect?
*Competitive landscape:
— Could any new competitors be contributing to the loss of sales?
— Could exiting competitors be contributing to an increase in sales?
*Customer perception:
— What are your client’s customers saying about the brand that may be affecting sales? Have you reviewed and considered hurdles you need to overcome or improvements you can make in customer perception?
— Check into delivery and fulfillment status. Is the front-to-back customer experience a positive one?
— Is there appropriate CRM (define) in place to drive repeat customers?
*Paid search:
— Has your paid search campaign been optimized lately?
— Is the PPC (define) copy in sync with the media creative?
*Consistent messaging:
— Does every customer touch point (online and off-) contribute to a seamless, unified message?
— Do the media creative offers complement the site offers?
*Product lines: Do new product lines on your site require a separate behavioral targeting campaign?
*Offline campaigns: Has anything shifted with print, TV, or radio campaigns that would influence consumer response to the behavioral targeting campaign?
*Data: Do the analytics provide an accurate, actionable picture from which to base your forward movement?
Other Factors Are No Scapegoat for Poor Media Optimization
Campaign assessment must be redefined to include a broader range of variables, but those variables are no excuse for less-than-acceptable buy maintenance and optimization. Behavioral targeting campaigns should be actively managed by agency and publisher alike, and be held to the highest standards. Goals should be stated and measured, and explicit optimization plans established. Of course, campaigns perform better when properly supported by a killer Web site that receives tons of traffic from other efforts, such as organic search listings and a broad PPC program. The more good work that goes into a campaign, the more good things come out of it. It takes a team effort to produce the best results.
Meet Robin at Search Engine Strategies April 10-13 at the Hilton New York in New York City.
Originally published on
There’s a lot of information available about planning and implementing effective behavioral campaigns online. Only recently have we begun to explore how to best leverage the data that lingers after the program is over.
Behavioral targeting has significant value past the life of the campaign. How can you apply teachings from one campaign to the next? Advertising networks are beginning to provide post-campaign data that can inform both on- and offline marketing efforts.
Tacoda seems to have started the trend by providing detailed behavioral reports, ranking behaviors based on conversion action rate (conversions/a behavioral segment’s unique users). Behaviors with the highest conversion action rate are assumed to be most popular with a target audience. A recent report for a women’s retail client noted the target is most interested in news, food, health, and travel, for example — information you wouldn’t get from looking at the CTR (define) and conversion rate.
Minimize the Ramp-up Period for New Online Campaigns
Online, these insights can be used to minimize the learning phase. Generally, behavioral targeting campaigns take a few weeks to ramp up, meaning they have to run broadly across multiple behavioral, demographic, and channel placements before optimizing to the best converting selections. This insight, when shared with new publishers, will help minimize the ramp-up time and maximize conversions.
Don’t make publishers guess. Behavioral reports provide the strong support necessary for recommended placements and can be referenced when reviewing a plan with the client. This information could also minimize the time needed toward optimizations once a campaign begins. If you know what categories and segments perform best for your client, you can allocate a sufficient number of impressions to support those placements from the plan inception.
Continue to test. Taken to an extreme, this approach may lead to segment targeting, not behavioral. If you’re able to glean good information about your audience to use, your best bet is likely to be a mix of targeting approaches.
Add New Data to Consumer Research
Offline, this data can be added to a host of research tools to advance media selection. With our women’s retailer example, we know news is the best converting behavior. The next logical step would be to ask, “Have I included this in my offline media mix?” Have you included the news category in your magazine selection? Do you utilize CNN and MSNBC in the cable mix? Data can surface segments and approaches worth considering outside the online program.
The networks don’t all have the same ability to provide post-campaign behavioral reports. Tacoda provides the most detailed reports, with inclusive numbers for added support. Advertising.com ranks the top performing behaviors but is unable to provide supporting data. BlueLithium reports its information differently from Tacoda, ranking behaviors based on estimated CPA (define). Other networks can’t yet break out behavioral data but are expecting to have the functionality later this year. A post-campaign behavioral report is a way for these forward networks to differentiate themselves from the pack. But like all innovation in our fast-paced industry, it may be on its way to becoming standard and expected.
As post-campaign report availability increases, what happens if you use multiple networks and the reports contradict each other?
This has been our experience more than once. These reports should be viewed as guidelines only. It’s important to bear in mind the networks are different. What works for one network may not work for another. Use post-campaign behavioral reports as directional, to get an idea of what behaviors convert the best and what behaviors to avoid. Make sure to reference site-side analytics as well, to find out what sites (and behaviors, if you can infer that from the site) refer the most conversions. Third parties, such as Media Metrix and @Plan, should offer consumer profiles of the client site, providing it has enough traffic.
Aggregate and compare all this data, and make judgments based on what you know about the client’s offerings and target audience. Beware of insignificant data. Rely more on data from the networks you apply a large budget to rather than those that are just at the monthly minimums. The networks with a larger budget portion most likely generate more conversions, which can then be more reliably tracked back to a behavior.
While the art of using post-campaign behavioral reports for future endeavors isn’t an exact science, it’s a step in the right direction. Improved technology provides a useful tool to inform a broader marketing program while meeting specific online program expectations.
Web site design lives in Internet years, and retailers who don’t get regular makeovers risk being left behind.
To quote a former U.S. president, “Oh, the vision thing.” For the e-commerce web site design thing, vision is crucial.
Last year Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne had increasingly worrisome financials top of mind. The financial woes were caused by a significant but troubled 2005 investment in new e-commerce and fulfillment technology. Hastily implemented system upgrades and subsequent troubles caused by them ultimately resulted in the Internet-only retailer posting a net loss in 2006 of $96.8 million on sales of $796.3 million vs. 2005′s net loss of $24.9 million on revenue of $803.8 million.
So Byrne began envisioning ways to turn things around. One of the big solutions he put into play was a major redesign of the retail web site-the 18th largest, according to the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide-slated to launch late summer. To be a success, though, the redesign required a clear and focused vision, he says.
“If you just do step-by-step, incremental evolution, you’re overlooking paradigm changes. You will not get there by incremental A/B testing alone,” Byrne says.
He reached this conclusion based on experience. Byrne finds crafting an overarching vision as the basis for site design and greater teamwork more balanced than the e-retailer’s previous on-the-go changes made by a small group of people. “It seems rational to quickly force changes through, and I’m guilty of that more than anybody,” he says. If he could start afresh with design, he says things would be done the way they’re now being done: first create the vision, then build a technological foundation, one that enables easy testing of design elements and brings the vision to life.
Visual and operational choices made by man are tested by machine to help Byrne and his in-house site design team determine what works best. The retailer uses testing and analytics applications from Omniture Inc., SiteSpect Inc. and Visual Sciences, a subsidiary of WebSideStory Inc. “These tools let us track how shoppers are using our site and what changes are effective or not,” he explains.
Overstock.com’s vision for its yet-to-debut site redesign is based on the vision of the company itself: to be “the world’s coolest outlet store,” one that showcases value and leaves customers satisfied, it says. Come the end of summer, the world will get to judge, based on appearance, just how cool Overstock.com is.
The known universe
There are nearly 109 million web sites in the world, according to Internet research firm Netcraft Ltd. If they were entered in Best in Show, what web site design standards could a judge use to make a decision? Applying the word “standard” to the art and science of site design is as ludicrous as the Miss Universe Pageant: Does tall play well in The Ukraine? Are Australians biased against plastic surgery? And where is Miss Centaurus Galaxy?
According to one judge, though, there actually is one standard that can be used to determine best or worst, right or wrong: the audience. “Site design only is wrong if you choose the wrong solution based on who your customers are,” says Imad Mouline, chief technology officer at G
Originally published on
Is behavioral targeting in danger of becoming just this season’s must-have item because of overexposure, under-education, and unrealistic expectations? Not to trivialize a remarkably powerful marketing approach that serves the needs of both consumers and marketers, but the recent explosion of offerings and discussion surrounding behavioral marketing have drawn in users who expect miracles from what should be one tactical element in a fully formed plan. Behavioral targeting isn’t a strategy by itself. That little black dress may be wonderful for the right occasion, but it doesn’t constitute a wardrobe. You’ll be disappointed if you expect it to serve all needs.
E-mail was the media darling for awhile. E-mail companies were hot, and offerings bred like bunnies. Then spam came along. With unwise, ill-informed, and unrealistic expectations, e-mail took a hit and our infatuation turned to search. Did e-mail go away? No, but it retracted considerably and changed. Investors were hurt. Consumers got angry. (Note: anyone else sensing a huge resurgence in acquisition e-mail offerings just around the corner?)
Search has staying power, but it’s dominated by a few huge players smart enough to continuously evolve. The same offerings are never really the same. Some marketers, particularly direct marketers, tend to overinvest in search because they see quantifiable results. We like to fund what we can quantify. When mainstream analytics grow up and smart marketers can effectively assign conversion credit along the consumer pathway, not just the last stop, they may be forced to reevaluate. But search has been the must-have item for years now. Marketers are longing for another focus.
Behavioral marketing is sexy. It’s logical. It’s easy to sell up the ladder, and it has wonderful street cred. Marketers are buzzing about the results they’re seeing, and case studies are bountiful. Every recent industry event has had some focus on behavioral, and every major publisher, and most of the minor ones, have responded with a behavioral offering to keep up with growing demand.
Behavioral targeting isn’t a service offering, but an approach that can be expressed in many venues (think sites, portals, or networks) and in many different ways (think retargeting, channel targeting, plus many others). Behavioral targeting’s basic premise is to read consumer cues to provide more relevant messaging. That those cues are present in surfing behaviors gives online marketers the opportunity to more quickly and finely detail the work marketers have always done.
Marketers have always tried to predict consumer response to commercial messages. Ads are crafted and tested, but the promise of dramatically reducing ad waste by delivering ads to only those populations that have exhibited desired behaviors has driven interest into frenzy. Frenzy isn’t good. Frenzy eats up inventory, drives up prices, and produces a flood of providers who rush product to market before it’s ready. It creates an atmosphere in which buyers throw money at sellers without appropriate due diligence and level setting. It creates confusion as a myriad of sellers try to differentiate themselves with names and programs that obfuscate rather than educate. It overexposes a potentially sensitive audience to desensitize them, just the opposite of our intentions. It doesn’t allow the time for the market to mature and respond.
Is behavioral targeting in danger of becoming a fad?
Not likely.
Whole industries are springing up around behavioral offerings. For the most part, these aren’t upstart, me-too, no-name companies. They’re respected Internet elder statesmen that have invested heavily in building and promoting behavioral offerings. The language and approach are seeping into other, non-media focused areas. Most notably, we’re making strong, logical connections to search behaviors.
What could hurt the future of behavioral targeting and its long-term staying power?
**A cavalier attitude toward the consumer. Privacy concerns are real and must be addressed.
**Technology gone awry, including an overdependence on technology to fill the marketing intelligence gaps. It’s a tool, not an answer.
**The tendency to use behavioral isolated from other marketing tactics. Effective behavioral marketing requires integration with other areas. This could damage its credibility with marketers with one-trick plans and unrealistic expectations.
**A glut of suppliers and duplicated inventory sources that aren’t disclosed.
**Damaged credibility stemming from vendors who can’t or don’t deliver. Bad stories circulate twice as quickly as good ones. In the gold rush that’s behavioral targeting right now, there are sure to be some less scrupulous or less adept players. Our collective reputation is at stake.
In an industry that changes so quickly, it’s natural and expected that new options will capture attention. Some of these options will become accessories to try for a season then give away. Some will become staples we rely on and reach for all the time. By all measures, behavioral targeting appears to be a solid staple, like that little black dress. If we understand it doesn’t work on every occasion, treat it well, and take care of it, it should serve us well for a long time.
Originally published on
The cocktail party question I used to be asked most often has changed. It seems to mark a shift in consumer sophistication and focus.
My answer to “What do you do?” was invariably a variation on “online marketing and advertising.” For years, the next question was, “Do you do those annoying pop-up ads?”
But that follow-on question has recently shifted to, “Can you guys really track my activities online?”
Marketing practitioners have written a lot about privacy initiatives and consumer opt-out options. The goal is to find some way to allow increasingly sophisticated targeting while protecting personally identifiable information (PII). Much is on the table, but little has been done in a coordinated fashion. Industry initiatives do little to explain to the average person what’s at stake or what they can do to protect their privacy.
Consumers are becoming savvier and more protective of their information’s integrity in all venues, so perhaps the question isn’t so surprising. My possible answers to “Can you guys really track my activities online?” include:
**”Don’t be paranoid.” The majority of mainstream sites do, in fact, track behavior — but at an aggregate level. They use non-personally identifiable data to customize the user experience, present relevant ads, and better understand their audience. This is in everyone’s best interest.
Marketers don’t really want to know all your dirty little secrets, and they can’t identify you personally by surfing behavior alone. However, if you visit sites you wouldn’t want to share with your mom and register an e-mail address or other personal information, that site can use your data to the extent allowed in its opt-in and privacy policies. No privacy policy, or you don’t remember if there was one? Shame on you. Next time, read the fine print. If you’re on a site that asks for a registration and it doesn’t explicitly state how it will use your information, the smart move is to leave and leave no trace of PII.
**”Of course.” The online world allows many tracking options. Ethical marketers use restraint because they understand the trust consumers place in them is fragile and valuable. If you have a buying relationship with a site, that business has a relationship with you that provides it with a new level of intimacy and information. It knows your buying habits and can connect those habits to your surfing habits for deeper information and more targeted selling. Enter into these relationships carefully and selectively with only trusted partners.
**”Tracking online can mean many different things.” There are limits to technological capabilities. For the most part, marketers have access only to the information on their own sites or within marketing programs they run. Some of those limits can be bridged by cooperative relationships between media partners or marketers who may share information: your information. This is the tricky part of recent privacy negotiations, but it represents a very small risk to consumers as things currently stand.
**”Yes, but so what?” Another way to look at the question is to quantify the possible downside. Worst case: you may be targeted with ads online or in e-mail. Spam filters reduce unwanted communications. As far as I know, no organization is building a master profile of consumers and their surfing or buying patterns. The upside is a more streamlined online experience and increased relevancy. Some people might argue the two balance.
Of course, all the answers above are truthful. The correct response would clearly be colored by the individual’s perspective and sensitivity.
Of course, all the answers above are truthful. The correct response would clearly be colored by the individual’s perspective and sensitivity.
How do you answer the cocktail party question?
The industry may be at a critical point. We can become the bogeyman, or we can openly disclose our concerns, expose false and sensationalized issues for what they really are, and enlist the public’s help in defining solutions that meet all parties’ needs. Lessons learned from the once fertile ground of e-mail marketing mean I’m in favor of a collaborative effort.
Originally published on
Behavioral targeting offers retailers great potential, but NetPlus Marketing’s president and CSO says they must rethink how they calculate ROI.
By now, most online marketers have heard the roar of behavioral targeting (BT). It has been written about and spoken about at great length– and for good reason. It is a proven, powerful tactic to support a number of strategies and objectives across industries.
However, retailers — who stand to benefit greatly from the integration of BT into the marketing mix — must rethink how they analyze their data and measure ROI in order for BT to meet their expectations.
The attraction of BT for retailers
Outside of a focus on their ecommerce operations, retailers have historically been drawn to promotion and direct-to-sales strategies, programs and tactics. This has led retailers to online programs such as affiliate marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing and other such tactics that embrace a direct marketing model.
The heightened awareness of BT has caught the interest of retailers and they are drawn to the direct marketing and sales promise of behavioral targeting. It addresses some key issues that continue to challenge retailers and cataloguers such as increased competition, escalating costs in search marketing, new customer acquisition as well as increased incremental sales.
An essential approach to BT for retailers
The strategic introduction of BT into an online program can contribute significantly to advance revenue goals, drive growth and build scale. Sharing his experience servicing retailers, Dave Yovanno, GM ValuClick Media U.S. says, “We have consistently found that by using behavioral targeting in a scalable environment, marketers can reliably expect significant and repeatable increases in their ROI.”
For retailers to truly exploit the potential of BT, however, it needs to be recognized as more of a direct influencer in the sales channel than a direct-to-sales tactic. This seemingly subtle difference is potentially huge when planning programs and measuring ROI– particularly when integrating other programs for maximum impact.
BT is extremely effective to ultimately drive sales but it acts more as a powerful influencer on such key drivers as consideration and intent. More often then not the last touchpoint or the point of sale happens at the search engines, which better represents a demand marketplace. BT builds the demand and qualifies the potential buyer.
For retailers to harness the most gain from BT they need to understand as much as they can about their customer behavior patterns. There are a lot of great analytics platforms that can provide rich data and insight to fuel a BT strategy. Other insight that can also contribute to an effective BT program would include seasonality, industry trends and market conditions.
Identifying actionable behaviors for increased ROI
Retail, ecommerce and catalog businesses have unique challenges, including competitive forces; internal infrastructure; and dynamic, changing consumer behavior that make it necessary for them to take a renewed approach to marketing. The insight that can be gained from actionable data can give a retailer competitive advantage with an integrated approach using behavioral targeting, search, email, media and others in concert to meet business goals.
Understanding your customers’ behavior, such as shopping cart abandonment, as well as industry trends contribute greatly to effective planning. Seasonality is often a huge consideration for many retailers as well, such as looking at a mass shopping behavior pattern like what retailers experience during the holiday season. A KPMG recent holiday customer survey, for example, revealed that 75 percent of 1,200 consumers said a simple return policy helped them decide which retailers to patronize. Armed with this industry data, retailers could target those customers that visited their site but didn’t purchase with a return policy message. Late-shipping guarantees also drove significant sales this past holiday season. This could be another potential message for re-targeting to help close the sale.
Data this, data that
In addition to understanding our customers’ behaviors, we must also understand the results data that we might get from a BT program. Retailers can get very excited at first glance when reviewing results from a BT program. If they don’t understand the program’s role in the mix or what the data means, however, you can hear the loud gasp from across the room.
Most retailers measure clickthroughs to conversion/sale. This would be an action representing a direct-to-sales conversion. But BT more often then not, particularly for retailers, will record a high percentage of view throughs, as high as 90 percent. This represents an exposure to the ad or message but the actual conversion or sale can happen minutes, hours, days or weeks after the initial ad impression. Through the use of cookies — a track record kept on an individual user’s computer recording items like passwords and visits to sites — advertisers can determine if a visitor to a site has been exposed to an ad previously, enabling credit of a view through.
It is critical, therefore, to measure the impact of BT programs on your search programs looking at such data points as overall increase in sales, a reduction in cost of sale, increase in average order value and so on. NetPlus has seen retailers experience significant overall lifts in sales when introducing BT with increases over 3,000 percent and a reduction in Advertising Cost per Sale reduced by almost 90 percent. A ValueClick Media electronics retailer client saw conversion rates to sales of over 15 percent with behavioral targeting, versus a 2.97 percent conversion rate from its run-of-network campaign. Understanding the data points, what the numbers mean and how your programs interact with each other is imperative to overall success.
Essential BT tips for retailers:
BT cannot solely be measured on a direct-to-sales metric.
* Understand your customers’ behavior patterns, industry trends, sales pressure and market opportunities to determine your targeting strategy.
* Know all your targeting options including site-side, network, leadback and so forth to plan effectively.
* Consider the impact of BT on your other marketing programs to determine a more actual ROI contribution metric to your results.
* Give your programs enough time to develop; typically that can be up to six to eight weeks.
* Make sure that you allocate budget appropriately. This will depend on what your overall online marketing and advertising budget is if you want to realize and be able to recognize gains.
The potential and power of BT to fuel an online marketing and advertising program is no big secret. But for retailers the secret is to understand how BT applies to their ROI equations, which may be different then how they are accustomed to measuring results or looking at data historically given their propensity for direct-to-sales programs. The end game is that BT is a powerful ingredient to the overall online marketing and advertising mix for retailers, but they need to understand how to measure it within their overall ROI equation and business goals to fully engage the potential.
Originally published on
The vast growth we saw in behavioral targeting offerings and advertising networks last year didn’t come without obstacles. There are significant, growing impediments for advertisers and marketers planning effective behavioral programs. All you publishers and networks out there, how will you help us cope?
Duplication
Behavioral networks continue to overlap, partnering with the same sites to increase their available impressions. This means advertisers using multiple networks can waste impressions and generate an undesirable amount of audience duplication. How can networks reduce duplication and coexist to offer extended reach?
Although networks allow buyers to target on many different levels (including channel/audience), few tout exclusivity agreements or strengths within affinity groups. There are pros and cons to this deeper segmentation.
One advantage of an increased focus or segment strength is better differentiation points among the networks for advertisers of healthcare, automotive, diet/fitness, fashion, wedding/bridal, and travel. But it could also make things more difficult and more expensive for advertisers.
Exclusive relationships could increase competition, with numerous networks fighting for the “best of the best” sites. This could create premium pricing and would dilute the economies of scale we currently enjoy.
It also runs counter to the genesis of the behavioral approach. Trying to gain better control of the buys by audience or content segmentation may go too far down the road of predicting which channels or segments are best for your plan. Behavioral targeting is about actual behavior, not predictive channel targeting.
Reporting
Another related duplication casualty is inaccurate capture of true cause and effect in ad spend. Current industry standard analytics assign conversion credit to the last view or click. Networks that may drive significant traffic and action on an advertiser’s site may not appear that way on paper if they’re not the last touch point. Industry standard reporting (a best practice) should begin to shift, tracking the purchasing or conversion path by illustrating the user’s behavior trail (rather than the last touch point). This need for an industry-wide shift is increasingly evident. The burden is shared by ad serving and analytics providers, agencies, clients, and media partners. It’s an urgent need.
Language Barriers
Several networks use different names for the same types of behavioral targeting. It takes time and expertise to read through the fine print to fully understand the language and define what’s actually being offered. It needn’t be that difficult. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) should establish industry language standards that networks would adopt to help prevent renaming the same targeting technologies. Networks could then focus on true innovation instead of repackaging to differentiate themselves.
Where Are We Headed in 2007?
Duplication, tracking/reporting, and language barriers are hurdles we still must overcome in 2007. Yet these obstacle won’t affect growing demand for behavioral targeting. As a new year begins, new advertisers are probably running trial campaigns right now. Chances are the results will warrant another new behavioral convert, and growing demand through the year will culminate in a frenzied Q4 push for scarce inventory. Will new players emerge to meet the need? Will better players emerge to service the behavioral targeting veterans who know to ask for more?
JupiterResearch estimates one in four online advertisers will use behavioral targeting in 2007. EMarketer estimates the market will spend $1.5 billion on behaviorally targeted online advertising in 2007 and perhaps exceed $2 billion in 2008.
The inevitable shakeout of the best players that offer the best customer service and produce results for their clients from their networks will help define a crowded field. True innovation in targeting, optimization, pricing, reporting, and response mechanisms will separate the commodity players from those who are fine-tuned. There’s room for both, and plenty of business to go around.
NetPlus Marketing has revamped the e-commerce Web site for men’s fashion underwear and fashion apparel brand Undergear, a business unit of Hanover Direct, Inc. Launched on January 4, 2007, the enhanced site boasts a modern, sophisticated look and feel, as well as updated navigation and shopping tools to make the online shopping experience easy and enjoyable.
“Intimate apparel is a huge segment of the overall e-commerce landscape,” said Denise Zimmerman, president and chief strategy officer of NetPlus Marketing. “We have the privilege of working with multiple brands in this area and are particularly excited about the re-launch of Undergear.com. The new site supports the current brand community while offering the flexibility and foundation for the brand to reach out to new customers and markets. The improved design and functionality showcases the synergy of strategy and creativity focused on business objectives that are core to NetPlus’ interactive solutions.”
The revamped site features a “Shop by Brand” option, highlighting the latest offerings from brands such as Undergear, Rufskin, Unico and Puma, in addition to a “Shop by Department” option, which organizes products into swimwear, workout wear, new products and complete outfit sections. The shopping functionality features AJAX technology that enables a more engaging, interactive and efficient shopping experience.
The design is in line with Undergear’s target audience — the fashion-forward active modern man. The design elements are sleek and edgy, and the content has been expanded to include lifestyle features. New lifestyle sections on the site include “A Model Life,” which includes exclusive interviews, interesting facts and upcoming projects from the most popular Undergear models and “Urban Hot,” which includes hot local destinations, restaurants and clubs from the month’s featured city — all of which are determined by Undergear customers who leave reviews and recommendations.
Customers can also sign up for exclusive online promotional offers, join the International Male/Undergear Advantage Club — a savings program where club members receive free standard shipping on all purchases for a full year — receive a catalog, sign up for the Undergear e-newsletter and more.
Editor’s Note: Undergear will be celebrating the launch with a bash at T Nightclub in New York on Thursday, January 25. If you’d like to receive an invitation, please contact Jennifer Wike at 919.833.9975 or jennifer@blastpr.com.
About Undergear:
Undergear is one of the leading catalog and online retailers for men’s fashion underwear, active wear and workout wear for fitness-focused men around the world. By making men’s body basics fun and fashionable again, Undergear is perfect for today’s body- and fashion-conscious male. Undergear is available by direct mail catalog, via telephone at 1-800-853-8555 or online at www.undergear.com. Undergear is a business unit of Hanover Direct, Inc., a leading direct marketing company with a focus on catalog and internet retailing.
About NetPlus Marketing:
NetPlus Marketing is a top 50 full service interactive agency. Celebrating 10 years of success, NetPlus Marketing creates programs that have measurable impact on their clients’ marketing and business objectives. NetPlus has been delivering award-winning, online marketing and advertising programs since 1996 for clients such as Aramark, Hanover Direct, Inc., Harriet Carter, Limited Too, Nature Made, Rita’s Water Ice Franchise Company LLC, Toll Brothers, Inc., Universal Studios, and other discerning marketers. To learn more visit: www.netplusmarketing.com.
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Media Contact:
Morgan McDowell
blast! PR for NetPlus Marketing
919-833-9975 x.12
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Behavioral targeting grew both in breadth and depth in 2006, with new capabilities and new players fueling the growth of one of the most successful online marketing approaches. The areas of growth were diverse, reflecting a rise in both technical capabilities and awareness among media players and their customers. As media properties pore over numerous case studies of marketers who touted their programs’ behavioral components and received RFPs specifically requesting this capability, they stepped up to include or enhance similar options in their mix.
The Resurgence of the Ad Network
Not only have a number of new ad networks been introduced, many networks and portals have evolved and refreshed their technology and targeting capabilities. In an increasingly crowded field, many networks are trying to find their point of differentiation. Right Media introduced an auction-based media management system, for example. Specific Media delivers a premium network with top 450 sites, as reported by comScore. Several networks have newly offered retargeting, including Vendare Media, Undertone, and Tacoda. Some have gone for sheer spending, adding sites to their lists and impressions to their inventories.
Additional Targeting Options in Portals
Portals adopted and refreshed behavioral targeting competencies in 2006. In September, MSN began utilizing behaviorally targeted ads across MSN sites, and Yahoo revamped its behavioral targeting platform in the summer to include a new matching system, which identifies the various stages of the purchasing process. Further segmentation options are giving portals a decided selling point against the reach of networks.
Individual Sites
Individual sites are now stepping up and offering more advanced behavioral targeting capabilities within their sites. This allows them to profile site user behavior and present relevant ads to users outside the related content areas. This may be Behavioral Targeting 101 to some, but it’s new to many standalone sites and a significant advancement now seen even in smaller sites. Behavioral targeting allows individual sites to monetize inventory on less trafficked pages and helps substantiate their CPMs.
New Opportunities
Mobile carriers are adopting behavioral ad technologies. Sprint Nextel displays ads on its deck with home-page advertising that allows it to target cell phone users by their behavior. In the past few weeks, Verizon Wireless and AT&T announced similar offerings. We may still be a long way from effective mobile advertising in the mode of Europe or Japan, but 2007 will be a year to watch in the U.S. A lot depends on hardware and infrastructure advances in the space.
What’s New for Advertisers and Agencies?
*Increasing control over the planning process and improved visibility. Networks are beginning to offer greater transparency, for instance, with site opt-out lists. This change came about partially because of the different needs of the brand marketers using networks for behavioral targeting. Behavioral targeting isn’t just for direct marketers anymore.
*Increasing competition. Growth cuts both ways here. More opportunities exist for behavioral targeting, but many, many more advertisers and agencies have jumped on the behavioral bandwagon in the past year. Yes, price pressure inevitably follows increased demand, but the growth of new suppliers has diminished the effect.
*Enhanced targeting segmentation. Marketers now have a greater ability to exclude certain cookie pools and certain behaviors and are offered additional targeting channels and subcategories. DRIVEpm offers targeting based on PRIZM clusters, for example. Also new this year is search retargeting, which places a pixel in the search stream, allowing creative served to each user to be more relevant.
*Behaviorally targeted video. In this year of YouTube, how could we forget video? In June, BlueLithium launched AdRoll, a video-streaming ad network with behavioral targeting capabilities for in-stream and in-banner placements. In May, Tacoda partnered with Tremor Network to develop behaviorally targeted in-stream video ad roll, similar to Blue Lithium’s product. Advertising.com and AOL each also introduced similar behaviorally targeted video over the summer.
Where will all this growth take us? Will networks continue to overlap, giving us strangling duplication, or will they coexist to offer extended reach? Will the industry come together to establish standards, including language commonalities, to dispel the confusion surrounding the space? We’ll explore the challenges and obstacles in the second part of this column. Stay tuned.
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