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Behavioural targeting set to make online advertising more popular
The online marketing sector is often at war with itself over which tools offer a better return on investment: SEO, PPC, social media, affiliate marketing, banner advertising and online PR all have their strengthens and ‘horses for courses’ comes to mind. A new twist on the common website banner advertisement is giving marketers the opportunity to target their audience with more precision than ever before and may give the tactic an overdue boost in popularity – provided the companies that use it don’t abuse privacy laws or annoy their customers. Head of online marketing at Adams Creative, Tim Stainton-James, considers some of the implications.
It’s no big news that marketing campaigns are more effective when the message connects with the audience. It’s why beer brands advertise at football matches and clothing brands advertise in women’s magazines. Intelligent Banners Adverts are a new generation of website ads that utilise information from a user’s browsing history and change to suit their interests. Otherwise known as ‘online behavioural advertising’ or ‘ad matching’, the concept is slightly Big Brother but totally legal and in line with the shift towards a more personalised online experience,” says Tim.
“There is no doubt the internet is becoming more entrenched in our lives with everything from video chatting to grocery shopping and banking available online. And as consumers spend more time online, whether through their PC, Smartphone, Tablet or games console, they are giving companies access to detailed information about their likes and dislikes on a scale never seen before,” explains Tim. “Intelligent Banner Ads are effectively making the level of personalised advertising found through Facebook available across the web.”
A handful of companies have developed this so-called ‘intelligent’ technology and a business model that allows companies to target their ads to individual users based on the information stored in their cookies. So far, only a few companies have adopted this technique but it will no doubt gain popularity if the ad companies behind it can provide evidence of higher click-through and sales conversion rates.
“A big question is whether consumers will be turned-off when they discover that companies have used information from their browsing history to deliberately target them. Depending on how repetitive and invasive the ads are, it can feel a bit like you’re being followed,” remarks Tim.
“More often than not the information stored on these cookies cannot identify you personally so individual privacy should not be at risk, but with quiet disconnect mounting about internet privacy generally, businesses considering whether to jump on the Intelligent Banner bandwagon will need to weigh up the impact of a potential PR fallout if customers become disgruntled – especially since negative consumer sentiment can spread like wildfire through social media networks and blogs,” warns Tim. “Given that secrecy is always a breeding ground for suspicion, companies might benefit in the long-run from being up-front about their use of such ads from the start and explaining how they operate them ethically.”
The medium is still in its infancy and is yet to be exploited fully as the algorithms underpinning the ads become more complex and draw information from more sources including a person’s search history on engines like Google and their social media activity. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has developed self-regulatory Good Practice Principles for companies employing online behavioural advertising, and like all advertising, it has to comply with UK laws. Their website youronlinechoices.com/uk/ lists a number of companies who currently use the technique and lets you know if you have cookies from these companies turned on in your web browser.
Privacy continues to be a hotly debated issue, and rightly so. But as the companies pushing the behavioural advertising approach argue, web users can to a large extent control how much information they make public. Whether the ‘personal responsibility’ line cuts it with the consumer remains to be seen, but in the mean time, online marketers would do well to reflect on where this trend might lead.
Your Online Choices website, Internet Advertising Bureau website
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