The Next Best Thing Since Sliced Bread: Behavioral Targeting
written by Anthony Dinh
Most ad networks such as Adsense, which most of you are familiar with, uses contextual targeting to serve relevant ads to users. In other words, if I’m on an auto enthusiast site such as AutoWeek, or I’m perusing the autos section on NYTimes, then it would make sense for me to see a Honda or GM ad right? Well, this isn’t very exciting or groundbreaking technology is it? Displaying an appropriate ad depending on the content of the page, how hard could that be? Not to mention, the ad inventory on these highly prized pages are usually either sold out, or are priced way out of range for most entrepreneurs like most of us who run small operations with a limited advertising budget…enter behavioral targeting.
Since 2001, TACODA, Inc. has been at the forefront of this new and exciting technology. What is behavioral targeting and how is it different than contextual targeting you might ask? We’ll get into that a bit later, but first, here’s some information about the company.
“TACODA®, Inc., a wholly owned division of AOL and a Platform-A company, runs one of the world’s largest and most advanced behavioral targeting advertising networks. Since 2001, TACODA has provided a comprehensive range of behavioral targeting solutions to thousands of web publishers and brand marketers. Its patent pending technologies enable brand advertisers to target relevant messages to specific audience segments. Major advertisers who have run campaigns on TACODA include General Motors, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Cadbury Schweppes, Bank of America, AT&T, GlaxoSmith Kline, and Sears.
TACODA has more than 4,000 sites reaching over 140 million monthly unique users. Major US media partners include Dow Jones, The New York Times Company, NBC Universal, Fox, AOL, Comcast, HGTV.com, FoodNetwork.com, Kelley Blue Book, and USAToday.com.”
At a very high level, BT, as the name implies, is where users are served relevant ads based on the web surfing behaviors that they’ve exhibited. Here’s how it works. First, the publisher (that’s you, the blog author) places the TACODA network data tag, and or ad tag on their site. Behavioral data is then collected from users which then places them into audience segments based on the behaviors that they’ve exhibited on a given site (job seeker, music enthusiast, auto shopper, etc.), but no personal data is tracked, so there are no violation of privacy issues here. The users’ behavior is not only tracked on the publisher’s site, but it will continue to be tracked once he or she leaves that site and visits any of the other 4000 sites within the network. A relevant ad will then be served to the users based on their behavior, not on the page context. If there are no relevant ads to serve, then TACODA does a pass-back to the publisher so that they can serve one of their own house ads, or a PSA (public service announcement) ad will be served by default.
Not only can the user’s behavior be tracked on other sites within the network, but TACODA has the ability to serve a relevant ad to the user on another site within the network as well if the TACODA ad tag has been deployed, even if the current site’s content does not match the user’s previously exhibited behavior. In other words, if I visited AutoWeek which has highly prized inventory (ad space) and is most likely sold out, then I leave and visit the obituaries section of NYTimes where the inventory is probably not sold out and more affordable, through behavioral targeting, TACODA is able to serve me an auto related ad on that page as well! This allows advertisers to attain the massive reach to their targeted audience more affordably and at scale. Additionally, not only does NYTimes get paid for serving the ad, but Autoweek will also get a split of the revenue share since it contributed behavioral data which resulted in the ad being displayed. So, an obvious benefit of joining the network is that you will in essence be leveraging the power of the network by having 4000 sites working as one to generate revenue by reaching 140 million unique users monthly.
To learn more about BT, visit TACODA.com.
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