Questions For Google On BT Plan
MediaPost.com

By Tim Daly, March 20, 2009

Just last week, we awoke to the riveting news that Google had reversed their previous corporate decision and will now enter into the Behavioral Targeting (BT) arena. Not a surprising move to those of us in the industry given that their core business, search engine marketing, is forecasted by industry experts to fall back into 2nd place with advertisers and their media budgets. 

At the recent OMMA Behavioral Conference, data was shared that behavioral targeting spend will exceed paid search spend by 2020. I'll place my bet down now that it will be much sooner than this given Google's "about face." 

The big question around the Google announcement is what advertisers should expect. While the opt-in maintenance feature that allows management of your interest classifications is nice, this is an option various other BT providers will be providing shortly. The challenges that advertisers must face is whether the new behavioral targeting options provided can help improve advertising effectiveness on an ad network with limited minimum qualifications such as Google AdSense. As our parents advised us in our youth, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. 

Before we get excited about Google's entry into BT and start reorganizing our media plans, we need to get a few questions answered. Here are a few questions I would pose:

• A large percentage of the banners in your network are below the fold where nobody can see the ad. How will BT fix this issue? Will the BT automatically command the browser to scroll down against the user's will? 
  
  
• If your primary targeting data is search engine query behavior, will it be too late for the BT by the time a banner ad is served? 
  
  
• If the data is primarily pull marketing driven, how does Google's BT help brand advertisers? 

While it is good to see increased competition entering the marketplace, and Google should be lauded for putting aside its complacency, it is pretty clear that Google is years behind the competition and they have a huge learning curve to catch up with major players in the industry. It starts with quality inventory, a direction that most ad networks began traveling down about 18 months ago. 

Much of BT's success is that it is applied to premium RON inventory, something that Google AdSense is lacking. BT cannot turn coal into a diamond all by itself and Google will learn this lesson the hard way. No miraculous algorithm will get online users to interact with ads that are not visible to them. 

What was most disappointing about Google's press release is that outside of the interest category management feature, they really don't seem to be bringing anything new in terms of approach to the marketplace. When various companies are launching next-generation technologies that bridge offline and online data, Google's BT solution arrived with more fanfare around privacy concerns than its lack of new cutting edge ideas. With so much rich offline data available that can improve online behavioral targeting and predictive ad delivery, Google has missed out on the direction that BT is clearly headed and that its competitors are already working on. 

It will be interesting to watch Google's next move and their commitment to this new advertising channel for their business. In the meantime, it might be wise to let Google learn on someone else's marketing budget until we know more.

 

 

First-of-its-Kind Behavioral Targeting Suite Launched
by ClearSight Interactive

Advertisers Can Now Target Customers and Track Campaign Effectiveness
Better Than Ever Before

 

Foster City, CA – February 26, 2009 – ClearSight Interactive, one of the most robust and sophisticated behavioral targeting services offered, announced the launch of operations today.  Founded by industry veterans Albert Gadbut and Tim Daly, ClearSight Interactive allows advertisers and publishers to more effectively target the consumer by monitoring and evaluating both online and offline demographic, psychographic and consumption behavior for the first time at this level.  With a database of over 165 million online users – identified with state-of-the-art data verification and predictive data modeling strategies – ClearSight Interactive boasts one of the largest collections of online user data, making it possible to generate the most highly-targeted online ad campaigns. 

The proprietary system opens new possibilities to businesses that want to save valuable marketing dollars while enhancing the effectiveness of their online and offline marketing campaigns. ClearSight Interactive’s proprietary technology allows advertisers to improve their ability to reach target customers by evaluating their online behavior and connecting it with offline profile data, conversions and sales.  After a consumer views or clicks an ad, the company can monitor their future behavior using contact information databases to determine if they later made a purchase – e.g. did someone who clicked a car ad actually visit the dealership and purchase a vehicle?  By accessing this contact information database of interested parties, businesses are also able to target their current and potential consumers via multiple channels beyond banner ads such as email and direct mail to create focused, yet comprehensive marketing plans.

“We are proud to offer advertisers and publishers a lasting solution to the problems that have plagued them since the inception of the web,” said ClearSight Interactive president and co-founder, Tim Daly.  “These solutions will help foster innovation and increase opportunities previously unavailable to online advertisers, publishers and media buyers throughout the industry. At a time when the economy is struggling and with marketing budgets being slashed, it is a necessity for businesses to streamline their marketing dollars to ensure they are reaching their desired audience in the most effective and cost-efficient manner, rather than using a blanket, non-specific approach,” he added.

With ClearSight Interactive’s tools, businesses can now better track the effectiveness of a particular banner ad at reaching its target audience and driving sales for the company.  As a result, campaigns that do not meet marketing objectives will be optimized in real-time or possibly eliminated and replaced by more effective media strategies that work.

With a first-of-its-kind approach, ClearSight Interactive bridges IP addresses to verified postal addresses and email addresses, to provide a solution that couples both offline and online mediums in a way that has never been done before. ClearSight Interactive packages their proprietary technology and consumer insights into a suite of four products:

 

ClearTarget

ClearTarget offers the most complete data collection of online users and the most powerful predictive data elements for ad serving available.  By limiting wasteful ad serving and improving user identification to better serve ads based on user behaviors and profile data, ClearTarget offers a new way for advertisers and publishers to run effective ad campaigns. ClearTarget is able to identify users within milliseconds to serve the most relevant ad to a user at the most appropriate time.

ClearAnalytics

Leveraging a database of over 100 million identified online users, ClearAnalytics provides insight into the demographic, psychographic and consumption traits of users. This reporting system evaluates the advertisers’ target audience and how effectively their media buy is reaching them.  Additionally, ClearAnalytics offers the capability to matchback offline sales to online banner impressions, providing valuable information regarding the true branding value of banner advertisements and allowing marketers to ensure their budgets are used effectively.

ClearTrigger

ClearTrigger offers advertisers an opportunity to engage and interact with prospective customers via email.  With over 165 million permission-based CAN-SPAM compliant email addresses integrated into ClearSight Interactive’s database, ClearTrigger allows for multiple communication touchpoints both through banners ads as well as email. ClearTrigger allows advertisers to re-engage the online user through email and speak with these users on a one-to-one basis about their product or service offering.

ClearMail 

Web marketers are challenged by trying to reach a mostly anonymous audience. ClearMail allows advertisers to identify online users and match back their behavioral activities to a known postal address, therefore bridging both the offline and online mediums and allowing advertisers to communicate with their target market through multiple marketing channels.

 

ClearSight Interactive’s solutions help identify consumers more successfully online, evaluate which ads are being delivered effectively, optimize ad delivery to focus on the most relevant audience, and canvass consumers across multiple marketing mediums.  “The goal with ClearSight Interactive’s suite of solutions is to eliminate errors committed in the advertising process, to not only make it more efficient, but also more productive and profitable in order to help business grow, particularly during such tough economic conditions.  We want to stop advertising dollars from being wasted on non-target markets and improve ROI beyond expectations for advertisers and publishers alike,” said Al Gadbut, ClearSight Interactive co-founder and Chairman.

ClearSight Interactive is currently in its Alpha stage of development and has already attracted an impressive roster of inaugural clients and development partners. To learn more about ClearSight Interactive and how their ground-breaking solutions can empower advertisers and publishers, visit www.ClearSightInteractive.com.

 

About ClearSight Interactive

ClearSight Interactive provides a comprehensive range of behavioral targeting solutions for both advertisers and publishers. Taking the step forward as a pioneer in this industry, ClearSight Interactive bridges the divide between offline and online consumer marketplaces while identifying the largest volume of online users in the industry. Our proprietary technologies have intelligently identified over 100 million permission-based online users and have captured billions of behaviors concerning these individuals, from both online and offline sources.  ClearSight Interactive is privately held, with headquarters in Foster City, CA and offices in New York and Philadelphia, PA.