Jeff Chester Reports on Digital Media and the Public Interest
excerpt:Â Marketers determine a schedule of web sites, portals or ad networks that will deliver the desired audience… online media buyers can also buy actual audience segments based on elements like geo-coded inventory through a reverse IP look-up, modeled segmentation based on cookie or panel data, offline sales data, registered user data and a host of other possibilities.
source: Does Online Advertising Deliver the Target Audience. Nielsen. Oct. 6, 2009.
Via Yahoo’s UK site:
Precision is where the real value lies. We know what our users are interested in. We also know their demographics, geographics and psychographics. We even know their online user behaviour and when they are ready to buy. So we can find you whoever you fancy and you won’t be bothered by anyone you don’t.
excerpt: “Were seeing a fundamental shift from where traditionally marketers have targeted pages, to where they’re targeting types of people” [ says Joshua Koran, VP, Targeting and Optimization, ValueClick, Inc.].  Advertisers can tailor their campaigns for a stronger impact by better understanding the behaviors and characteristics of their ideal customers, and by serving ads only to them. The ads’ messages can be tailored to the tastes of these customers, in addition to the content near the ad…They look through an advertiser’s historic data, analyzing the behaviors of the people who ultimately clicked on an ad or converted. Software helps them mine this data to better understand which behaviors have a high correlation with conversion.
Using the insights from data mining, they target ads to people with the same characteristics of those who have already clicked or converted…”Even without knowing ahead of time which audiences are more likely to respond to a campaign, we can watch which audience are clicking and converting and begin targeting more of them.”
source:  Behavioral Targeting: 3 Methods Compared, and Tips on Simplifying Data. via Adtech.
That’s from the overview section of an important new research report: Americans Reject Tailored Advertising and Three Activities That Enable It. Conducted by a team of academics in two leading universities–the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley’s Center for Law & Technology–it’s an essential text for those concerned about privacy, consumer welfare and civil liberties. The study is a concise overview of the issue, and includes a very important analysis and discussion.
As we have explained to policymakers, they also must address how online marketing applications threaten consumer privacy.  The rise of so-called smart ads that learn about your interests and behaviors, and then makes you special offers, involves the use of sophisticated digital techniques such as rich media. As this week’s Performance Insider on “Add Direct Response to Get More out of Rich-Media Ads” explains:
Ad delivery technologies further enhance direct response success by leveraging dynamic ad generation to produce a custom rich media ad that is optimized based on specific levers — products or creative elements of interest to the consumer combined with behavioral, demographic, geo and other targeting. By creating an on-the-fly, ultra-relevant ad with in-banner key response activities, marketers will drive greater interaction, response and conversion.
Rich media and online marketing company Pointroll (owned by Gannett) explains how the use of its “tailgating” technologies expand the capability of interactive multimedia ads:
Rich media ads are attention-grabbing, powerful, and engaging. They can encourage consumers to buy products and direct them to the advertiser’s retail stores or website via click-through to make the purchase. But until now, they were not a true end-to-end solution. Now, through a partnership with tailgate, pointroll offers secure ecommerce capabilities directly within rich media ad units. With pointroll ads powered by tailgate technology, consumers can purchase goods and services directly within the ad unit, without ever leaving the site they’re browsing. Tailgate can enable any credit card-based ecommerce transaction. Possible applications include purchasing movie tickets, music, ring tones and retail goods; and making political or charitable donations…Advanced analytics – integrated reporting, analysis & research tools provide an in-depth look at campaign performance and visibility into consumer behavior and purchase patterns.
Pointroll’s Ad Control product adds this dimension: Create, deliver and measure unlimited creative and messaging combinations with dynamic ads that influence the right consumer at the right time with PointRoll’s AdControl. Create: AdControl enables advertisers and their agencies to easily produce infinite ad combinations by mixing and matching various creative elements and dynamically generating a unique ad in real time. Connect: AdControl seamlessly leverages each possible creative combination and marries it with information known about the user to deliver the most relevant, customized ad experience based on characteristics such as geo, site, placement, or custom defined variables…AdControl gleans information about the consumer and turns this knowledge into a customized ad; ensuring the most relevant creative is served to each user…By mapping user characteristics to creative elements, AdControl can produce the right ad for the right consumer.
The growing integration of data collection and targeting across key platforms by key online marketing conglomerates, such as Microsoft, with advertising agencies is one issue that policymakers must address. Here’s an excerpt from a Sept. 21, 2009 announcement on Microsoft’s mobile marketing plans:
Publicis Groupe’s Phonevalley, the world’s leading mobile marketing agency and part of the VivaKi Nerve Center, announced today a strategic agreement to create customized mobile advertising solutions, technology and metrics that will run across Microsoft’s mobile web properties, including the Microsoft Media Network, Bing and MSN. The packaged solutions will be available in 14 markets worldwide, including the U.S., the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany.
This alliance strenghtens the relationship between Microsoft Advertising and VivaKi. It furthermore reinforces the VivaKi strategy to build a market leader in digital communications, in an increasingly mobile world.
Phonevalley and Microsoft Mobile Advertising will work together to design innovative packaged mobile advertising solutions for six industry verticals: luxury, retail, entertainment, automotive, travel and financial services… To efficiently drive the most qualified audience, the package would take advantage of the innovative ad formats and new targeted mobile media features such as behavioural targeting developed by Microsoft Advertising.
Additionally, by utilizing data from dedicated vertical research and post test results, advertisers can further improve the efficiency and efficacy of their campaigns to better engage with their target mobile audiences.
As the debate in Congress, the FTC, the European Commission heats up about behavioral targeting and online privacy–and as regulators examine the Microsoft/Yahoo data deal–here is how Microsoft plans to extend it’s use of behavioral targeting [from MediaPost, excerpt]:
 Microsoft last week began offering behavioral targeting for ads running on its mobile network. But while the service offers a range of online targeted categories — about 100 –to advertisers buying mobile display inventory, the launch really means so much more.
Jamie Wells, Microsoft’s global director of trade marketing, mobile advertising solutions, says the targeting cuts across the Web, mobile and Xbox platforms when consumers sign into their Windows Live account. It allows media buyers to purchase consumer profiles demonstrating interest in specific categories, as well as specific times in a purchase funnel.
The technology doesn’t rely on cookies, but rather the user’s Windows Live ID. Cookies present a challenge on the Web, but even more so on mobile. Sometimes telecommunication carriers either strip out cookies or don’t accept them from third-party companies. So, rather than use cookies, Microsoft relies on behavioral profiles associated with Hotmail email and Xbox accounts through Windows Live ID. When a person on a mobile phone uses that same ID, Microsoft can link the behavior on the Web with behavior on their mobile phone and Xbox.
Although tight-lipped on Microsoft’s strategy, Wells admits “this is just the beginning.” Microsoft plans to expand its approach to tie together the Web, mobile and Xbox, drawing on the power of the entire Microsoft network. The strategy will integrate the audience, he says.
“The mobile application addresses one of the biggest challenges, which is targeting,” Wells says. “This is a way to circumvent the cookie problem and use online profiles. Also, some folks would argue that there’s a much higher bar for ad relevancy on mobile, and BT speaks right to that.”
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.
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.”
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).