Some Credit to BigSoccer.com, but media waste too

BigSoccer.com must be doing a behavioral targeting campaign since I am constantly seeing ads promoting ManU kits and the latest boots. I recently went to a soccer site to see when the Chelsea vs. Liverpool Champions League matches were, so I am guessing that is what started the “targeting”. It’s better to see ads that are relevant to my interests than dancing people and “go back to school” ads constantly.

Now, there comes a point when it’s too much. I can’t tell you how many soccer ads I have seen today. To me, there is a diminishing return on this campaign and it has reached that point. If they are using multiple networks, which I assume they are, that’s great to get some more sites, but BANNER burnout occurs much faster. I am guessing they did not net down the sites so that each network have exclusive inventory, even though all say they do, it’s such a small portion. So here I am seeing the same ad over and over.

Ad networks are a great way to target individuals online, after all, they allow marketers to target the user, not the site. That being said, marketers must be careful about over using them and actually doing more harm  than good to their name. Marketers must look at using multiple networks simultaneously carefully, so they don’t waste media spend and annoy their potential customer. Or flight the networks on a trial to see which ones work the best then move forward with a select few or one. Or use a third-party ad server which helps eliminate the issue completely.

I give Bigsoccer.com credit for targeting me as a consumer, but have a sneaky suspicion they are wasting a fare share of their media budget by utilizing multiple networks and not being able to cap overall impressions to an individual user.

Revenue Science looks for Behavioral Targeting standards

Revenue Science  announced an initiative about creating the Behavioral Targeting Standards Consortium (BTSC). This group will look to define behavioral targeting and set industry standards. They are looking for individuals from all aspects of the business, agencies, advertisers, publishers, industry thinkers and anyone else who uses behavioral targeting. Their first measure is to work on creating a standard definition of behavioral targeting as many people use the word, but many different definitions exist.

I am excited for this consortium to begin defining behavioral targeting as I believe all parties involved in online marketing will benefit. One of the struggles of online advertising is understanding exactly what is happening where and when. Traditional media is pretty simple, buy an ad, it runs and move on to the next. Online marketing is much more dynamic as constant changes and optimizations can be made from creative, placement, time, targeting, and several others and that causes some grey area to some marketers, especially those that are new to online. They know enough that they need to advertise online, but don’t know how and where the advantages are.

Once the consortium can begin to define some industry best practices and definitions, I think they will be able to move on to consumer privacy as several different groups have had concerns how sites are collecting information and using that in their marketing strategy. Companies that are more progressive with their targeting abilities such as NebuAd will likely embrace the consortium to help spread the comfort level of online targeting capabilities and also endorse consumer privacy policy.

They will also look at standardizing what behavioral segments are. Tacoda will likely push their 22 “targets” to the consortium which they develpoed in 2004 to help optimize the media buying process. Competitors might feel that they will now have to follow the Tacoda model, but the consortium will hopefully decide the targets, and they are defined/created.

If you are interested in joining, you can join online.

Ad networks paving the way for the future of TV advertising?

Are ad networks doing all the grunt work and learning for the future of TV advertising? As online advertising through ad networks has its trials and tribulations of targeting, aggregating and measuring TV networks need to pay close attention. If the model becomes standardized and accepted, media buyers will demand that they get the same kind of targeting and capabilities that they can get through online advertising.

Offline media paved the way for the origins of online advertising as all the original metrics from offline buying carried over to the online world such as reach. But it seems that we are getting close to the catch phrase of “crossing the chasm” where online will propel itslef further into unchartered territories of tracking things like engagement. As more and more “brand” advertisers shift dollars to online and interactive marketing, they will demand better trackability, results, and just plain cool stuff that can be tracked. Think UGC here.

TV executives better keep a close eye on behavioral targeting and engagement measuring as the questions will begin to rise and answers will be demanded. Video on demand is there, pre-roll video is there, it’s just a matter of time before cable TV offers behavioral targeting. I hope, as it means ads that might actually offer something I might be interested in.