Behave differently, and Yahoo will serve up a different advertisement, as the company implements a heavier focus on what people visit in their network.
Reuters cited a Yahoo executive speaking at the news agency’s Media and Advertising Summit in addressing the future of online advertising, at least for Yahoo.
Yahoo EVP Greg Coleman told attendees, “The new, new thing at Yahoo, even though we’ve had variations of this, is getting much more into behavioral targeting.”
That targeting takes other factors into consideration beside search query terms. It goes beyond simple demographics or geotargeting ads by user location.
Users who click certain ads and navigate to certain pages exhibit behavior for targeting. Add in factors like time and day, and Yahoo gets a richer look at how and where a particular ad can be delivered.
That information can be sold, albeit with user anonymity, to Yahoo’s advertisers. In a way, it reflects the idea of ad placement on television. Considering Yahoo executives like Terry Semel and Lloyd Braun have a lengthy Hollywood studio history, behavioral targeting offers a logical extension to their ad campaigns.
Behavioral targeting has come a long way in a year. In September 2004, a Jupiter Research report noted an increase in behavioral marketing, but didn’t perceive any long-term impact:
“Behavioral targeting is a very small market. Even as it grows, it’ll never be a dominant force in online advertising. But while it’ll remain relatively small, it can still be really useful to marketers, who see great results from behavioral, and to sites, who can take some of their remnant inventory and make it much more valuable,” said Nate Elliott, associate analyst, Jupiter Research.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
