By Dana Bojcic
Absolutely, and it is awesome. One of the main ways we are targeted with online ads is based on our online behavior. Actions we take online and what we demonstrate an interest in puts us into targeting categories. In a way we are virtually raising our hands and saying, “I’m over here and I’m attracted to what you are offering.” The best part is that what we are targeted with changes with our behaviors, so the ads we see reflect our current interests and remain relevant.
For example, last year around this time I was in the market for a minivan and ads for local dealerships were everywhere. Now, I no longer see ads for them, but I am now an owner of a minivan and living the minivan dream. I recently moved, so now I am seeing ads for home insurance, new furniture and cleaning services to name a few. These ads are all relevant and all tailored to me. I subscribe to Stitch Fix, so I see their ads as well as Trunk Club and Rent the Runway. All personalized and all for me. In fact, According to Michael Griffin, CEO and founder of Adlucent, personalization is critical. He states, “As brands continue to battle for consumer dollars, it’s clear that the way to win is through personalization. Consumers expect content that is both useful and contextually relevant — the right information served at the right time.”
Great advertising means that now all ads are personalized, and what we see is very different from one another. In fact, I had some of my friends at Vici send me a sample of the ads they are seeing right now because of their recent behaviors to see how different they are. In the same day, different team members at Vici saw ads for pet friendly apartments, bikinis for an upcoming cruise, information on passive income investing, and makeup from Sephora. All based on what they recently investigated online.
So, what does this mean for your clients and their marketing efforts? It means you have fantastic options on how and who to target behaviorally.
We can target display ads using Behavioral Targeting. We can also use behavioral targeting with Native, Facebook, Instagram, and Mobile Conquesting as well!
You might be wondering how long you stay in a behavioral category? Typically, about 30 days. So as your behavioral evolves so will the ads you see.
Keep in mind, behavioral targeting doesn’t categorize interest or intention to buy, it captures all seekers who visit websites of a specific category (auto, wedding, HVAC, travel, etc.) and serve ads back to the cookies or online IDs of those users regardless of intention. Behavioral targeting is when an ad is directed to a cookie on a computer. So, you book an airline ticket to fly on a specific date to a city – next thing you know you receive ads from Hertz Car Rental.
That’s Behavioral Targeting because:
• Hertz has purchased your cookie data from whomever you purchased your airline ticket
• You receive the ad on any site because the ad is delivered to your cookie – news site, sports site, medical site, entertainment – the site is irrelevant to delivery because reaching you (the person that bought the ticket is all that matters).
If you want to get even more specific with Behavioral targeting, consider our Advanced Behavioral Categories. With Advanced Behavioral Targeting, we can target display and video campaigns to an end user’s gender, income level, age range, education level and more. How do we pinpoint this targeting? We use Lotame as our data service provider. Lotame’s global data network provides a pool of more than three billion cookies and two billion mobile device IDs. We have captured granular data against these cookies and device IDs and packaged it into highly curated audience segments.
So yes, your behavior online unquestionably reflects the ads you are served.
Happy Browsing!