BEHAVIOURAL TARGETING, “DE LA POUDRE AUX YEUX”?
Despite 4 years of intense OZ language practice, I am yet to find an expression that perfectly translates “de la poudre aux yeux”.
Reading my point of view on Behavioural Targeting, you will surely understand what it means and may be able suggest a phrase that I would happily enrich my Australian vocabulary with.
This is where it starts: in 2010, volume and diversity of internet users, advanced cookie collection technology, market demand… everything is here for Behavioural Targeting to take off. US research shows that 44% of digital marketers rated Behavioral Targeting as the best performing online advertising tactic.
Overall Behavioral Targeting ranks 2nd behind SEO in terms of ROI. Expenditure forecast show that targeted display should represent 23% of the total online expenditure by 2012. However, every brief for custom profiling seems to still be answered with the same type of response: not enough volume or technology can’t go that far into clustering data…
So, what if I need to target Australian families who own a cat or a dog? I know that there are tonnes of them on line, in fact Roy Morgan tells me that they are 7.9 millions, or what about young Sydney siders with no kids who like indulging holidays… Behavioural Targeting would be the perfect option to address the right message to those people but for now, I would have to compromise and go for pre built segments such as: main grocery buyers with kids, air fare seekers, or affluent. It is true that this type of targeting generally works pretty well and we have seen engagement results as high as 20% above contextual targeting. However in the above case, I am not sure that any “main grocery buyer with kids” would react to a pet food ad??
For these types of custom briefs I would be willing to use data clustering solutions and not the “default segments” built by most of the networks. In spite of high expectations around Media Smart access to detailed information from 900 thousand Telstra customers, Microsoft Media Network advanced technology, Fairfax Digital proud capabilities it seems that building robust customised audience groups is not as easy as it looks. Exciting opportunities for immediate application remain somewhat limited. Tests are yet to be analysed in order to fully understand how the actual results compare with forecasts. In saying that, we were nowhere near where we are today at the same time last year, so capabilities are improving. Let’s not give up here, and keep pushing the boundaries. Things will keep evolving and I am hoping to see this landscape changing quickly.
Now back to “de la pourde aux yeux”: this expression feels to me exactly like the current situation on Behavioural Targeting: Someone shows you something that looks like gold but when you actually look into it deeper, it ain’t shining any more…
