AdverNET '99 COVERAGE: Effective Targeting

From: donna stryk <donna.stryk_at_tenagra.com>
Date: Thu 21 Oct 1999 09:18:43 -0500

We know you're just dying of curiosity so here's the next
installment of our AdverNET '99 Conference Coverage. This
article will cover the session entitled "Effective
Targeting: Exploiting the One-to-One Opportunity."

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In the second session on the media buying track at AdverNET
'99 the panelists discussed the various solutions to
effectively target a particular audience. The information
regarding the types of methods used to accomplish this was
extremely interesting. Unfortunately, we only heard what
the panelists' companies could do to help you target an
audience. Although it seemed more like a series of sales
pitches than a conference session at times, there was a lot
of valuable information given out from the panel, as you
will see in the remainder of this article.

First of all Paul Schaut, President and Chief Executive
Officer of Engage Technologies provided information on the
company's profile driven internet marketing solutions.
Building the profiles is the first step in the targeting
process. There are two different levels of profiling, site
level and behavioral profiling. In the first case, a
company would place inexpensive software on their site,
which would survey visitors in order to learn more about
their demographic. In the second case, a company such as
Engage would track the visitors' activities on the site
under the premise that the best indicator of future behavior
is what they have done in the past. In addition to building
these individual profiles, Engage has compiled a "knowledge
database" which aggregates many profiles into one. So, what
is the purpose of all of this data? Analysis. These
profiles become the key to determining where to serve ads
and where to deliver content. To sum up Engage's
capabilities, Schaut said "we build profiles, we let those
profiles be used to drive analysis, and the third piece is
to let those profiles be used to drive the actual delivery
of the marketing message." As I said before, this
definitely depicts the ways that Engage can help in your
quest to reach your target audience. I think the important
thing to take away from this is the use of profiling and
using visitors' behaviors to predict future behaviors and
improve your campaign accordingly.

Steve Chadima, Vice President of Marketing for Free-PC
delivered a different perspective on targeting. His company
provides a free PC and Internet access to consumers and
sells targeted advertising on the desktops of those PCs.
Like Engage, their targeting is profile driven. Customers
fill out a personal profile and give their permission to let
Free-PC watch their usage habits. They monitor when
customers open programs and how long the customer uses a
program. Based on this data, customers are shown targeted
advertising on their desktop including a banner on the
bottom tool bar, smaller buttons on the side of the screen,
and channels with logos for the sponsor of each. One point
that Chadima felt strongly about was the rules that
marketers must follow when dealing with consumers and
tracking personal data. The first rule is "to be explicit
about what you're doing." You have to let the consumer know
exactly what information you will collect as well as who
will have access to that data. Marketers should answer as
many questions as possible in order to make the consumer
more comfortable giving out personal information. The
second rule is to ask permission both to collect the data
and to deliver advertising beyond just banner ads. A good
benefit of this is that consumers tend to be more responsive
to advertising when they have given permission for you to
show it to them. Finally, it is a good idea to compensate
the consumer for their time and information. In this case,
they receive a free PC or free Internet access in exchange
for their profile. Following these rules puts consumers at
ease. This will make them more likely to answer profile
questions honestly and more receptive to the advertising
too.

MatchLogic provides yet another targeting solution. Mike
Griffiths, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of
Engineering said that their mission is "to deliver the right
message to the right person through the right avenue at the
right time." They too use profiles to locate specific
market segments as well opt-in email lists, which help
define consumers' interests. Based on behaviors of online
consumers MatchLogic builds a model that they can apply to a
broader number of Internet users. Their focus, however, is
on the traditional segmentation tools such as geographic
location, gender, age, income level, etc., which interest
traditional advertisers. MatchLogic captures data when a
banner is served to a site that uses cookies. They also
look at the time of day that the visitor made the request as
part of the analysis. Marketers then use the profiles that
result from these methods to serve the right ads to the
right audience, help sites analyze where traffic is coming
from and their audience demographic, and whom they should
target for email advertising. So, what factors predict a
successful campaign? Griffiths said that first "you have to
have a high database match rate." It is important to obtain
as much information about who is coming to your site as
possible. The second factor is that the information you
obtain must be a combination of geographic data, demographic
data, time of day, and contextual data in order to have a
broad understanding of who is visiting. You must also have
a great, creative offer. You have to advertise something
that your audience will want. Finally, to achieve success
you should have a coordinated media buy. "If you do a run
of site buy you have to be very clear that you're buying a
sample of that audience." You have to look at what other
advertisers have already purchased to avoid getting
undesirable leftovers.

Finally, we heard from Manish Bhatia, Vice President of
Interactive Services at Neilsen Media Research. Obviously,
Neilsen has long been one of the most respected ratings
providers for traditional media. Now they have taken that
expertise and applied it to the online world. They
approached this new medium in almost the same way as the
more traditional media, by placing a "box" in homes across
the country. In the online world, that box takes the form
of software placed on the user's PC. This method makes the
results much more reliable than the standard television logs
because the user is not required to write down every site
they have visited. Instead, the software tracks everything
automatically, with no additional effort from the user.
Unfortunately, as with any random sample method, you must
look carefully at the statistical validity of the results.
Will the data for smaller sites be as accurate as the
information gained regarding larger sites? How many sites
will actually be included in the measurement? Although the
sample technique leaves a little bit to be desired, there
are some very valuable pieces of data that can be a
springboard for further research. The interesting thing
about Neilsen is that marketers are able to look at the
demographic makeup of any site rather than just sites on a
particular network. It is not a matter of profiling, but of
who actually visited the sites. They also allow access to
the sites that competitors have advertised on along with the
results of that advertisement and a thumbnail of the actual
banner. All of this can give you a good foundation for
targeting your campaign.

We all agree that finding your target audience is essential
to getting the results that you want and need. These are
all interesting solutions to the question of how to track
down a particular segment of the online community. There
are lessons to learn from each type of targeting solution
and you may be able to apply some of these lessons on your
own. Remember that past behaviors are good indicators of
future behaviors. This will help you target your campaign
to consumers who have demonstrated your desired behavior in
the past. Secondly, remember to give the consumer as much
information as possible and to ask permission before
building profiles and using them to push advertising. Next,
remember to research which inventory has already been sold
before placing a run of site buy. Finally, keep in mind
that sampling techniques may be a good place to start, but
make sure that you perform further research.

More coverage of AdverNET '99 is still on the way. In the
next week Online Ads will bring you "Online Promotions: What
Online Advertising Is Really All About" and other
interesting topics covered at the conference.

Donna Stryk

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Received on Thu Oct 21 1999 - 09:18:43 CDT