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As President of VINDICO Group, Matt Timothy is spearheading the next chapter of the BBE story, through the continued growth of its proprietary video ad delivery and targeting products. Matt’s 12-year career in digital media includes stints with CBS, Ziff Davis, and most recently, National Cable Communications, where he was SVP. He was also co-founder of Funnel Networks, a media analytics company that focused exclusively on the effectiveness of pharmaceutical advertising. Matt holds a B.A. in Social Science from Hofstra University.

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Behavioral Targeting Is Just Like Selling Cars

Written on
Sep 8, 2010 
Author
Matt Timothy  |
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Behavioral Targeting Is Just Like Selling Cars

car_salesman_smallADOTAS – Imagine you visit a car dealer. You look at a sporty new red convertible. A salesperson sees you have some interest and starts to follow you around the sales floor. He points out every other car that can come in red, goes fast or has a top that comes down.

He asks no questions, is oblivious to your body language and expression. He will not leave you alone.

You get annoyed. You leave. The salesperson now follows you out of the dealership, into your car, back to your job and then home. All the while he is trying hard to interest you in something red, sporty and fast.

This is insane. The dealership and the brand will suffer for years from this one, truly ham-handed experience. You will never spend a dime there. Welcome to behavioral targeting gone bad. Real bad.

Behavioral targeting holds promise. With that promise comes increased responsibility. If this sales person established a connection and respected some boundaries, he could probably get his business card and brochure into your pocket. You may allow follow-up email to tell you about new, very favorable financing options.

He could, over time, help you decide about a car. He understands that you are going to do a lot of online research and will be very smart on what you want and what you think you should pay. He has taken your interests and with respect and timely information provided a service and a useful connection.

In both instances you are the “target,” but in only one did you distinctly feel that way.

We need to think less about targeting and more about relevancy. Think less about our sale and more about the customer’s experience.

Behavioral targeting, at its core, offers to bring increasingly relevant ads to a consumer. Every Sunday during football season, Howie Long tries to sell me a pick-up truck. I am a suburban dad of three who will most likely never buy a pick-up truck in my life. I am a frequency of 50x (or so it feels) for this ad and I groan when I see it. Howie and his truck are not relevant to me and never will be.

My behavior of watching football has put this ad in front of me and every other football fan. Ham-handed and a waste of the advertisers’ money, but not written about in The New York Times. If Chevy knew that I have lusted after Corvettes my whole life, wouldn’t that make their ads much more interesting to me on Sundays?

Targeting technologies, like car salesmen, are here to stay. Online is the most fertile advertising soil to test and understand the power of more relevant advertising. Increased relevancy is a win for the consumer, the advertiser and the audience vendor, when done correctly. It’s success or failure will be directly and proportionally tied to the amount of respect we have for the people to whom we would like to connect.





Reader Comments.

You make great points, but ask more from marketeers than most are capable of. You ask that they understand web analytics so they can comprehend online behaviour; you ask that they think long-term, instead of focus on immediate goals; you ask that they consider the impact of their behavior from the perspective of the customer, not the client; you ask that they adapt their behavior to suit customer preferences. These are all laudable goals, but in my experience, these are too much to ask of most marketing people. In fact, as far as I can see, most marketing people don’t even want to think about these issues at all.
It’s pointless to ask for intelligence or moderation with behavioural targeting. It will be handled as responsibly as email marketing – a few good people amongst a flood of spam.

Posted by Brandt Dainow | 4:53 am on September 9, 2010.

Hi, reality check calling; the odds odds of suburban dad of three buying a crew cab pick-up, actually more practical than an SUV, are waaay higher than suburban dad of three buyinf a Corvette. The fact that Corvette ads would be more interesting has amarketing value of zilch. When is the last time you saw a Corvette ad on TV?

Posted by Oldster | 11:17 am on September 9, 2010.

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