The View From Here

By Melissa Campanelli

About Melissa

Melissa Campanelli is the editor-in-chief of Target Marketing's eM+C brand and Retail Online Integration, a monthly print magazine, website and e-letter (The ROI Report) that's all about the integration of sales channels, including print/catalog, transactional websites and retail stores, as well as email, mobile, social media and more.

Prior to becoming editor-in-chief of eM+C, Melissa spent ten years at DM News, where she was first a senior editor and then deputy editor. She's also a leading expert in small business e-commerce and author of the books "Entrepreneur Magazine's Open an Online Business in 10 Days" and "Start Your Own e-Business."

Conversations

Putting Pinterest To Work For Your Brand

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Pinterest is the new hot property. Overnight this visual curation powerhouse has generated more traffic to websites than Twitter, Google+,...

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Engagement Matters

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Mar 1, 2012

With mobile devices ranging from smartphones to iPads to e-readers to netbooks, the question isn't if you need a mobile strategy for...

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Inside Mobile Marketing

Building a Mobile Presence

Dec 15, 2011

Mobile is a revolution. The power of the personal mobile device has created the potential for businesses to build stronger...

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Redefining Performance Marketing

Facebook's Timeline for Brands: A Facebook Performance Opportunity

Mar 29, 2012

Facebook's new Timeline for Brands enables marketers to foster engagement with participants. This engagement can equal Facebook performance. Brands can...

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15 Minutes Ahead

How Evolving Mobile Behaviors are Raising the Stakes for Marketers

Jan 5, 2012

While none would argue that 2011 was the year of the mobile app, marketers have been hearing more noise about...

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Digital Marketing Takes Action

Which is Better for Mobile Shopping, Tablets or Smartphones?

Jul 7, 2011

Are you wondering whether it’s worth providing your online retail offering on tablets, particularly the iPad? Are you also facing...

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Ways of Thinking

A Facebook Fan is $136 in Lifetime Value, $3.60 in Media Impressions

Jun 29, 2010

The lifetime value of a Facebook fan is about $136 to top brands, according to this study on Facebook fan...

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Behavioral Targeting Industry Needs Further Delineation

By Melissa Campanelli | Posted on April 16, 2008

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I received an interesting press release the other day from ValueClick Media that recapped a recent behavioral targeting panel that took the stage at the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago. The panel featured an industry analyst (David Hallerman, senior analyst, eMarketer), a behavioral targeting product expert (Joshua Koran, vice president, targeting and optimization, ValueClick, Inc.), a brand marketer (Julian Chu, Director of Acquisition Marketing, Discover) and an interactive agency executive (Sam Wehrs, Digital Activation Director, Starcom). What I found most interesting about the release was that fact the group discussed and agreed on the need for delineation between the different approaches to behavioral targeting. "While it is important to understand the difference between retargeting – which Hallerman referred to as “reactive” – and the more complex models, the panel agreed it is also critical to understand the differences within the more sophisticated group of behavioral targeting approaches, and Joshua Koran shared three designations: “clustering,” “custom business rules” and “predictive attributes," the release said. The "clustering" approach assigns each visitor to one and only one segment while the "custom business rules" approach offers marketers the ability to target visitors who have done X events in Y days, with Boolean operators of "and." "or," and "not." Finally, the "predictive attributes" approach automates the assignment of interest categories based on the visitor activities that best correlate with performance; thus, the system is continuously learning to identify multiple interest attributes per visitor. Another notable takeaway was the need for a focus on the customer experience and the corresponding importance of demonstrating value to customers when serving behaviorally targeted ads. According to the release Julian Chu offered three questions marketers must address to make behavioral targeting a valuable experience for customers instead of merely serving the ads, which would unavoidably become customer annoyance: How are you going to do it? Where is it going to happen? What is going to happen at that time? Presented as part of ValueClick Media’s ongoing Media Lounge education event series, this event – The Changing Behavioral Targeting Landscape – as well as the discussion itself underscored the importance of education relative to this increasingly important online advertising technique. Food for thought!

Companies Mentioned:

eMarketer

Sections:

Internet Marketing