How should e-retailers behave with ad targeting?
Is behavioral ad targeting the right way to go for e-retailers?
“There is an ongoing discussion regarding behavioral targeting, about whether you are paying more for targeted traffic that you would otherwise receive anyway,” says Maris Daugherty, a senior partner at J.C. Williams Group Ltd., a global retail consulting firm.
Daugherty cites two types of behavioral ad targeting to consider. The first is targeting based on data gleaned from how Internet users interact with a brand on an e-retailer’s site, i.e., what product categories they view, what products they view, what terms they search. The second is targeting based on data gleaned from Internet users’ overall web activity, i.e., what retail sites they visit, what news sites they visit, which search engines they prefer.
“Targeting makes sense when you use it to target and accelerate brand engagement based on known behavior with your brand or an attribute of your existing customer base. It is highly successful when done with data on your customers from your own site,” she says. “I’m not as confident that the overall surfing behavior method of targeting will deliver the same results based on how the web serves and tracks media. Further, if you are looking for mass volume opportunities, behavioral targeting will reduce your potential audience universe.”
Nonetheless, Daugherty believes behavioral ad targeting can be a useful tool. “I’m a strong believer in the principles of direct marketing,” she says. “The more targeted your message and audience, theoretically the better your response is. In most cases targeting resonates better with the potential customer. And under the right circumstances, you get better ROI performance and higher customer engagement with the brand.”
For e-retailers considering getting into behavioral ad targeting, Daugherty suggests answering three questions:
- "Does what you know about your customer dovetail with what is being offered by the sites you are considering?"
- “With behavioral targeting you will find that your reach is narrower and your costs potentially higher, but your conversion may be better. Does this strategy fit with your objectives?”
- “Do you have the resources, in house or outsourced, to track performance of this media all the way through to your success metric?”
Back...
