We have no plans to add behavioral targeting into Pepperjam Network although that would be interesting.

We currently only work with BA in our media planning and buying division, which Katharine (the author of the post) leads.

Kris

I was wondering when the affiliate marketing industry (networks in particular) will utilize more of this type of targeting technology and blogged about it here. Affiliate Marketers Don’t Behave. Do You?

That was a blog post from last year. I have yet to see any indication that affiliate networks are heavily diving into behavioral targeting. Is this post a sign that PepperJam is indeed going to lead the way and test out this technology?

Thanks for your comments!

Extremely well-written and thought provoking!

Kris

We watch television programming every day that leverages huge amounts of data about its audience to serve up the most LIKELY success advertisement for the time slot and the potential majority viewership. How long will it be before our MSN Passport data is made available to something like HDTV providers to key in on your set top box and personalize a commercial for your household, or habitual viewing tendencies. Moreover, what will that mean to companies, and individuals involved in that exchange. Will the outcome justify the potential, if not certainty of a breach of our personal privacy on some level? Isn’t being a consumer enough to do that in the world before BT? I think so.

David Weinberger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Weinberger) presented this really interesting topic on how this world of interrelated connections through the internet and social media exists and the more we fight it (having sat in audience as an analyst for a top 500 internet retailer) the more damage we will inflict on our brand and our ability to make it work. It would propose that the same is true from the individual perspective. As individuals engaged in actions and interactions on the web, we stand to have our experience enhanced by sacrificing a bit of our privacy for that purpose. I for one, know I would love if ads for cheap ski vacations to SnowBird came up everytime I exhibited the appropriate behavior on sites which deemed it was, for me, at that time affordable.

As this is limited to Behavioral Targeting, I won’t even go into my thoughts on the next step, which is site action based behavioral personalization. Having performed research on how to achieve this, and apply advanced methods to its implementation, I can say that the world is much better off for it. Plus, anyone who knows anything about the backend of how this data is collected, aggregated, and applied, should know that the level of anonymity which still exists (when proper policy from companies is applied) should give the user the freedom to go about their business without fear of ever being stopped on the street by a person who knows about their web surfing habits or preferences…whatever they may be.

Sincerely,

Daniel Shields
Chief Analyst & Contributor
Wicked Business Sciences
http://daniel.webanalyticsdemystified.com

The problem is that cookies can be used for evil as well as good so to speak. Adware and spyware has been such a hot topic over the last 8 years or so that it has an automatic negative connotation associated with it. I don’t think the general public really understands how the internet works and this leads to the idea that all cookies attack our privacy. It also doesn’t help when their antivirus program (cough norton cough) sends off all kinds of bells and whistles for every cookie it finds.

I don’t know that it’s going to be easy to change people’s impression of this type of advertising.

-Todd

I completely agree. I think a lot of people are forming opinions without really taking a look at what BA actually is or how it works. As you mentioned, cookie based tracking is used almost everywhere on the internet and most of us can’t image using the internet without… or at least i can’t. I like when sites remember me and prompt my surfing of their site based on past visits. I also appreciate that when i am perusing other sites, like FaceBook or Yahoo Entertainment, that i am served ads that are relevant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked on a Facebook Ad that was advertising shoes or some other fashion item… and purchased!

I think part of the problem currently is that regulatory agencies or political figures are playing on consumer’s fears that their privacy is being invaded through the use of Behavioral Advertising. The public is given scary examples and statistics from the days of yore, they become scared and up in arms about their privacy. Then the people, via these regulatory bodies, start demanding really unnecessary and complicated measures on our industry that prohibit us from doing our job to the best of our ability.

In today’s post I’m actually going to go over what the FTC, the IAB and this one Assemblyman in New York is saying about BA and the proactive restrictions they are looking to place on Behavioral Advertising.

Thanks for the comments though. Solid, per usual.

Nice, basic overview.

I’m glad you stress the anonymous nature of most behavioral advertising (BA) – that’s key to seeing BA as less of an invasion of privacy and more of a way of serving more relevant advertisements.

Another important point you made is that most BA is cookie-based. Whether users know it or not, just about every form of online tracking (BA or not) is cookie based. For instance, when you log-in to gmail or Yahoo Mail they drop a cookie….when you shop online at your favorite store (i.e. Amazon, Zappos, etc.) a cookie is dropped. In most cases the cookie is used t store personal information so that it is more easily retrieved in a particular user session or in the future. My point is that users should not be scared of cookies – they are more common than you would think.

Unfortunately, behavioral advertising got a very bad reputation (deservedly so) back in the late 90’s in 00’s when companies like Gator used what is called “bundling” to serve non-concentual, intrusive pop-ups and pop-under banners. In short, back in the day when you thought it was cool to download music file-sharing services like Morpheous what you didn’t know was that you were also downloading Gator software, along with other pieces of intrusive software that you didn’t know about, as part of your Morpheous download. Shaddy – right? Absolutely! But…that was the early days of behavioral advertising and it’s been difficult for the industry to shake the early reputation.

Fortunately, Congress stepped in and examined the idea of bundling and created rules around what is legal (concentual) and what is illegal (non-cencentual) downloads. Of course, the argument still instigates serious empotion by users who feel violated by any kind of behavioral tracking, regardless of whether it is covert (like the old days) or overt (understood and agreed upon).

Nonetheless, the bottom line for purposes of better understanding BA is that it isn’t as spammy, and isn’t as uncommon, as one would think.

I’m a big believer in throughly understanding a concept before you advocate against it.

Most of the Anti-behavioral marketing folks out there, in my opinion, don’t understand the concept. Instead, they latch on to the old days of Gator when resonable minds couldn’t differ – BA back then was an invasion of privacy and would have been illegal under today’s standards.

Kris Jones
CEO,
Pepperjam