Category: Behavioral Targeting

“Behavioral Targeting provides realtime visibility into actions of indviduals” says marketer

Excerpt from EMC.com’s Fast Facts on behavioral targeting:

Unprecedented Opportunity

Behavioral targeting provides realtime visibility into actions of individuals…Firms that specialize in audience segmentation have refined the use of behavioral targeting…Ten years ago, it would have been impossible for a marketer to reach an individual who lived in Seattle, enjoyed tennis, and tended to surf on a high-speed connection at 10 A.M. on Tuesday’s.  Today, it is not only possible to identify the target, but it is also possible to reach the target with highly customized messaging.  Behavioral targeting variables, or targeted schemas, are limited by only two factors: a marketer’s imagination and the advertising network offering visibility into web-wide behavior.

Behavioral advertising networks…provide a piece of tracking code to be placed on one or more pages of the market’s website.  The code is used to identify a visitor to the site as a person eligible to receive a targeted message elsewhere on the web…some large portal websites such as Yahoo! do not need a “network” to define behavioral segments across their thousands of content categories.

Microsoft’s “Sweeping Vision” for Online Ads: “unlocking the Holy Grail of marketing” by “mining user intent”

The digital data collection arms race is unleashing powerful forces focused on data collection and consumer targeting across much of the online world.  As advertisers meet to discuss and celebrate their accomplishment and plans, as part of Advertising Week, Microsoft is playing a leading role.  As you read about their plans from this excerpt in Adweek, keep in mind that they hope to bundle their search marketing platform with Yahoo!

Microsoft is heading into Advertising Week looking to capture the ad industry’s attention by laying out a sweeping vision for the online advertising market and the integral part it plans to play in its the future…At the heart of that undertaking is the plan to build a product that can determine exactly what ads Web users want to see and when. “At the core, the most important thing to us is mining user intent,” Howe [Scott Howe, corporate vp, Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions group], said. “What does a user really want to see in the way of advertising.”

That’s easy in search. But intent is not so clear on content sites or social networks. “If Bing is step one [for Microsoft Advertising], step two is extending that engine to power the ads that someone sees across all display ad formats and multiple devices,” Howe said.

…”When people talk about behavioral targeting, often they’re talking about flat display formats on a PC — and we’re talking about across all digital devices,” he said. “And so, by having this engine power all the different things holistically, we’re actually in some respects unlocking the Holy Grail of marketing.”

Microsoft Extends Behavioral Targeting to Mobile [Bing Will be Ringing & Tracking & Profiling]

Read this excerpt from the Microsoft Advertising announcement released today.  And ask if your privacy is really protected when they use your search data to target you over mobile devices for “financial services,” “lifestyles,” and other “behavioral segments.”

Today we launched our Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solution, which means all of the powerful behavioral targeting options, segments and categories previously only available on our online properties are now available to buyers of our mobile display inventory as well.

Mobile behavioral targeting enables advertisers to reduce advertising waste and maximize the impact and ROI of their mobile campaigns by targeting consumers who have already demonstrated an interest in specific product categories. Over one hundred behavioral segments across popular advertiser categories such as Automotive, Financial Services, Health, Lifestyle, Life Stages, News and Entertainment, Retail, Technology and Travel are available for purchase.

How does Microsoft measure behavior?

Microsoft Behavioral Targeting works by anonymously tracking behaviors of users and classifying these users into unique segments using information from the following data sources:

. PC Web keyword search behavior from Bing Search

. PC Web Site visits to various sites across the Microsoft network

. Microsoft network data (i.e. Hotmail newsletters, Xbox subscription data)

. Profile data from Windows Live

With Microsoft Mobile Behavioral Targeting, data from these sources and others is factored together along with its relevancy to create hundreds of unique, specific segments. Within these niches are the consumers who are most likely to be receptive to your message. Your mobile ads are served only to users in your desired segments, enabling you to refine your reach and increase your campaign’s performance. Simple yet powerful, Behavioral Targeting is one of the most effective and efficient forms of mobile advertising available today.

Here at Microsoft we understand that preserving consumer trust is essential to the success of our business. Microsoft maintains a strong focus on protecting customers’ privacy and adheres to high privacy standards. Our Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solutions do not utilize personally identifiable information (like name, address or phone number).

A Venture Funder Calls for Opposition to Privacy Rules Online–Cites the Need to Collect Financial, Pharma, and Youth Data


“Lightspeed Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital firm that manages over $2 billion of capital commitments.” Jeremey Liew is a managing director of the fund, with “a particular interest in social media, commerce, gaming and methods for increasing monetization.” Lightspeed is a backer of many high tech concerns, including online ad and data collection/targeting companies.   Writing in the company’s blog, Mr. Liew cites the recent call for online privacy safeguards.  He then writes [our emphasis]:

 

 “While it is always hard to argue against privacy, the impact of this level of restriction would be enormous for companies relying on online advertising. Financial services and pharma/health are two of the leading categories for online advertising; the youth demographic is highly attractive to many advertisers, and limiting behavioral targeting to one day without an opt in severely restricts the usefulness of the data.

 

I’ve spoken to a number of people at venture backed ad networks, and it is clear to me that more needs to be done to organize feedback to the FTC and congress about the proposed rule changes and legislation.”

 

I think Mr. Liew has helped underscore our concern.  Sensitive data involving a person’s finances, health, and their children, require serious consumer safeguards.

 

“a behavioral targeting platform…, allowing advertisers to identify and track their desired audience on an unprecedented level”

excerpt:

interCLICK’s innovative behavioral targeting filters allow you to target the right individual users at the right time, increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns. With over 350 behavioral categories, interCLICK can get as precise as you want.

We segment users based on observed behaviors into 3 interest levels: slightly, moderately and very. Furthermore we use frequency and recency to classify these interest as short, mid, or long term interests. As the user navigates throughout our network of sites, we continually adjust their profile based on anonymous observations, assuring the accuracy of our profiles.

Leverage interCLICK’s massive data warehouses to effectively target users who have been determined to exhibit certain behaviors throughout interCLICK’s network. interCLICK offers over 350 different Behavioral Targeting categories/sub-categories… [including]
FINANCIAL:    Personal Banking Seekers
Credit Card Seekers
Retirement Investing
see also:   interClick Improves Scalability of Data Targeting with Latest Platform Upgrade

Online Ad Lobby: A Failure of Vision and Ethical Responsibility

Online ad and other marketing industry lobbyists, in responding to the recent call for Congress to enact privacy safeguards, have failed to seriously address the central public interest issues.  One lobbyist even went so far as to suggest that people want to be tracked, profiled and targeted through their ethnic/racial and political online behaviors.  Others have claimed that providing the public control over what information about them is collected and how it’s used would somehow lead to the erosion of online publishing.  Beyond the absurdity and short-sightedness of such claims, what these online ad leaders fail to address are the civil liberties and consumer protection concerns at the core of the debate.

A democratic society in the digital era–given the current and prospective power of the global online data collection and targeting system–requires serious limits on both commercial and governmental surveillance.  The development of digital dossiers on citizens and others is the realm of dictatorships and autocrats–not a democracy.  That’s why it’s in the interest of responsible advertisers as our fellow citizens to help ensure there are limits on data collection, analysis, use.  By providing individuals greater control and autonomy over the digital marketing process–through federal rules requiring transparency, accountability, and meaningful limits to data collection–we can help protect our civil liberties and provide needed consumer protections.  Everyone recognizes that we are using online to engage in very personal transactions, including health, finance, and politics.  We will be, needless to say, writing more on all this.

Our new Journal of Adolescent Health article on the Youth Obesity Epidemic and Digital Marketing

Prof. Kathryn Montgomery and I just published an article in the Journal of Adolescent Health [JAH] on the the role interactive marketing plays in the current youth obesity epidemic.  It is part of a special JAH issue focused on the obesity issue.  It’s a very good introduction to the current digital marketing landscape, and is one of a series of reports we have done on the issue.

Microsoft Pushes a “Behavioral Targeting Product Roadmap” and it is “Betting” on Increased Consumer Targeting, inc. “Retargeting.” Company Wants to “Live the Data”

The potential combination of the behavioral targeting technologies of both Microsoft and Yahoo! should be one of the key areas investigated by antitrust authorities.  Privacy issues are also important for regulators to address with the proposed deal.  So these current behavioral targeting job openings at Microsoft provide a glimpse into these issues.

Microsoft is now seeking a “Product Marketing Manager of Behavioral Targeting on the Audience Select team…The Product Marketing Manager will establish the requirements and go to market strategy for Microsoft’s Behavioral Targeting product. S/he will partner with a team of world-class engineers, client service, business operations, legal, privacy and other product marketers to envision and design the industry’s best targeting technology to connect advertisers with their audience. The candidate chosen for this position will be responsible for creating the product GTM roadmap, developing and prioritizing segment requirements and designing GTM models to support the sale and delivery of behaviorally targeted advertising. S/he will be Microsoft’s resident expert on Behavioral Targeting and will be the first person to explain and communicate business metrics – particularly sell-thru – to field, business, and engineering…Articulate the behavioral targeting product roadmap to key customers and partners, and aggregate industry feedback in a form that is actionable for development…Influence long-range, multi-release planning for behavioral targeting…Someone with a deep passion for advertising technology and a deep knowledge of the targeted industry…”

Then look at this position for a “Taxonomist/Audience Intelligence.”  Note that they include the fiction that Microsoft will compete with Yahoo!!!

Online advertising is the biggest growth opportunity for Microsoft. This business currently generates about $2B in revenue for Microsoft with tremendous opportunity ahead, given how the industry wide advertising is shifting to digital media. Join and help take our digital advertising to the next level to compete against Google and Yahoo with our initiatives in Audience Intelligence. Our group is chartered to develop an industry leading targeting system for all our ad products and services. Effective targeting helps an advertiser reach their core audience and will drive high value propositions to the end customers. We as a company is betting on this initiative to differentiate our advertising offerings to our customers and to further grow our advertising revenue.

We are seeking an experienced taxonomist to provide thought leadership in taxonomy, classification, and metadata management. Audience Intelligence enables the discovery and inference of user profiles, intent and interaction while respecting privacy and trust, with the ultimate goal of maximizing benefits for users, advertisers and publishers. Our focus spans all types of digital advertising such as search, display and emerging media including mobile, gaming, video on demand, and IPTV.

And they also want someone to help its behavioral retargeting initiatives (which it calls remessaging!)

The Search & Media Network Group within Microsoft Advertising is looking for a rock star product manager to deliver against revenue goals for Microsoft Advertising’s Re-Messaging product, by driving global business planning and execution, product marketing and competitive strategy…We work to seamlessly combine a range of individual online advertising products that span search, display and audience targeting, into solutions that address advertisers’ core campaign objectives.
Your core mission will be driving business revenue and field sales engagement with the Re-Messaging ad product (also known in the industry as Re-Targeting)… Live the data, by building a deep understanding of the key metrics associated with the Re-Messaging business, and driving analysis into trends and emerging opportunities…Specific partners will include product planning, trade / field marketing, sales, yield/monetization and more…

The Battle to Protect Adolescent Privacy Online–Maine’s new law and beyond

Online marketers–including Time Warner’s AOL–are up in arms over a new state of Maine law that is designed to protect adolescent privacy online.  We won’t get into the specifics of Maine’s new law at the moment (but heard some online advertisers are especially fearful of the “private right of action” in the law, which could bring citizen lawsuits).  But we know its sponsors are among the growing number of advocates, health professionals, consumer groups and parents that want to see teenage privacy respected.  Digital marketing techniques are being used to target teens, including the gathering of data for behavioral profiling.   Groups have already asked the FTC and Congress to address this problem.

Responsible marketers should support new safeguards that respect teen privacy. There are also a variety of consumer protection issues connected to online advertising that need to be addressed.  We expect this issue will be fought out at the state, federal and international level.  My CDD will be continuing its work bringing unfair marketing practices targeting adolescents before the FTC and other regulators.

Google PR Job Goals: “mitigate negative media coverage that might lead to unnecessary regulation”

Google has a job opening for a “Communications Manager, Multiple Focus Areas.”  Here’s an excerpt from the job description:

As a member of the Communications team based at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California you will…devise specific campaigns that establish solid contacts with journalists, face-to-face meetings with commentators and other opinion formers and develop print and web-based materials targeted at a range of different audiences, and counter misinformation and mitigate negative media coverage that might lead to unnecessary regulation or interfere with our business and ability to serve our users in other ways. Managers are very strong writers who can process complex technology issues – through blog posts, FAQs, video scripts and more – and explain them in clear language internally and externally.Â