Is Believing in Behavioral Targeting Like Believing in Santa?
Coincidentally, or not, this week an investor, an entrepreneur, a vendor, and a writer each enthused about behavioral targeting. They seemed to all believe this was the future of advertising. But while I do believe in the demonstrated benefits of behavioral targeting, I couldn’t help but wonder whether believing in it was like believing in Santa — something you do when you’re a kid, but grow out of, hopefully, at some point. Past Behaviors to Indicate Future Behaviors? The premise of behavioral targeting is that past behaviors are good indicators of future behaviors. It’s something that seems easy to believe. But let’s peel back the holly leaves a bit. Granted, research shows that the brand of car that the parents bought has a strong correlation to the brand of cars the next generation buys. That is brand purchase behavior. But the behaviors used in online behavioral targeting calculations are impressions, clicks, keywords, tags, click-stream (sequence of sites visited), etc. — seldo
