Search Behavioral Targeting

Microsoft and Google both have plans for using users past search behavior to provide tailored search results, practice commonly known as Behavioral Targeting. While companies like Revenue Science and Tacoda (now part of AOL) use users web surfing behavior on the internet to determine what users are interested in and server Relevant Ads, search giants are using the past search queries and click though activity to determine users intent and show them relevant search results (organic and paid ads).

As these practices become more prevalent no two users will see the same results on search engine results page for same queries, some of this is already happening. In future even the same user might see her results change from one day to another based on what he/she searched and clicked on between those two days.

An example of how search behavioral targeting might work A user looks for hotels in Bahamas and then search for Scuba Diving lessons the next day, she might see the search results (organic and paid) that combine both the queries to show her Scuba Diving Lessons in Bahamas. Yet another day she decides to search for Jamaica. Guess what? Her organic and paid results might show her Hotels, Airfares (though she never searched for it) for Jamaica and maybe Bahamas or even some other Caribbean destination. She might also get results for local Scuba Diving lessons. So why will the search engine showing all these results when user never explicitly searched for them? Search engine is trying to determine user’s intent based on what user searched for and then show the customized results based on the intent. In this case the user’s intent is clear; she is looking to go somewhere, most likely in Caribbean. Since she is searching from a geo location other than Caribbean, she might need flight and hence airfare might be shown. She has already indicated she needs Hotel and is looking for Scuba diving lessons so her search results are related to those keywords as well. Once the intent is determined search engine can show can show customized results for a particular user. As the user searches more her intent become even clearer and the possibilities of how search results can be customized for this user are endless.

Last July Google started using immediate search queries to show targeted paid search results. Google is now expanding the time frame that it uses to look for search queries. Here is what NYTimes.com reported on Google’s plan:

Nick Fox, a director of product management who looks after ads on Google’s search site, said the company was now testing the use of more search queries in its ad targeting. He did not describe how it was doing that. But Internet experts said that it was most likely using its cookies.
Mr. Fox said that Google’s approach was different from what Yahoo, AOL and others call behavioral targeting. Those companies look at what a user did a few days earlier to show them ads about the same topic today. Google says it believes that search engine advertising is most effective if it relates to what the user has most recently searched for.
“We are trying to understand what the user is trying to do right now,” Mr. Fox said. “In some cases, those queries are ambiguous, so you need a little more context.”
Google’s previous system of looking at a user’s immediate past query was not useful enough, he said. “It is probably not just the previous query that matters,” Mr. Fox said. “You want to know if the user is still doing the same thing. You wouldn’t want to go back a month. You wouldn’t want to go back a day. But you may want to go back two or three queries.”

Microsoft plans to take it one step further and expand the “behavioral targeting” to the organic search results. Here what is what CNET reported:

Specifically, the company believes examining a full sequence of user queries can lead to more useful results. Today, the company only keeps track of the immediately prior search, but often users use search engines to explore subject areas broadly, said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group, at the Search Engine Strategies conference.
“I believe this notion of understanding user intent–being able to analyze (search queries) and come up with search patterns and use them to shape the search experience–is one of the most important areas for us,” Nadella said.

Recently Behavioral Targeting has been under a lot of fire from privacy advocates and lawmakers. It will be interesting to see how privacy police reacts to search behavioral targeting. Though Behavioral Targeting from Revenue Science is anonymous, Search Behavioral Targeting is based on user provided information (search keyword), which can easily be tied to PII information.

I have always advocated an opt-in model for Behavioral Targeting, a system where users give their consent to be tracked and have an easy option to turn the tracking on or off. I believe that Search behavioral targeting makes it even more desirable to have an opt-in model.

Comments? Questions?

——————————————————————————–
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position? Try WebAnalytics Job Board

New Position

(Web Sales) Conversion Marketing Manager at Hewlett Packard (American Fork, UT)

———————————————————————————

Google Collecting Data on 3rd Party Sites to Target Ads on Google.com?

Is Google collecting data on the 3rd party sites to target Ads on Google.com? A user called “Discovery” on Search Engine Watch Forums reported that Google showed targeted ads (sponsored search results) on Google.com based on this user’s behavior on 3rd party sites (Fry’s, Circuit City, HP.com and Best Buy).

Here is what “Discovery” wrote:

“As far as I knew Google’s PPC was strictly KW search based, then an odd thing happened yesterday.

Without going to Google I had visited Fry’s, Circuit City, HP.com and Best Buy looking for a PC for a family member. After some research on these sites I decided I wanted to look at some comparison engines. I opened up a new browser window and went to Google, I did a search for “Comparison engines”.

My results were very interesting.

Instead of a generic list of comparison engines touting to find the best prices for all products all the advertisements were related to PCs! Specifically HP PC’s! I had not done a search on Google at any time for PCs, or on their shopping site.

Is Google using behavioral targeting already? I had heard there were announcements that this would happen with the acquisition of DoubleClick, but I have had no notice that it was in practice?

If it is being tested, how does this type of advertising effect the KW advertisements that are competing with it?”

So the question is “Is Google doing Behavioral Targeting on Search results using visitors behavior off the search engine?”

I have written quite few blog posts on this topic and have always believed that Google will get into Behavioral Targeting sooner or later.

It started “in-session” behavioral targeting on the Google search engine, which uses a user previous search query and combines with current query (both in same session) to provide sponsored results on the SERP (search engine results page).

This person noticed that Google was using more than search data to target sponsored results on Google SERP. The kind of behavioral targeting that this person is talking about can only happen if:

1. Companies such as Best Buy, Fry’s, etc share their data with Google and allow Google to tie the users behavioral data collected on their site with other data that Google collects about those users (using a common cookie or some other common identifier).
   For this kind of data sharing to happen, Google (or Doubleclick) code has to be implemented on the pages (or servers) on those sites. I did not find any code, but it is possible that the code is there because if these sites are doing online advertising using Doubleclick then they must be putting the code to measure the success of these online ads. However, I highly doubt that they will let Google (Doubleclick) use the data collected on their site to power Google Search results unless Google is using the data to put their ad in front of users. Think about this. Why would Best Buy allow Google to use its data and allow it to show Circuit City’s or some other competitor ad?
2. Google collects this data via a toolbar or some other application that tracks user across the sites and on search engines.
   This sounds like an option that might have been used to collect data, if Google really did do Behavioral Targeting. I am not sure if the user had a Google Toolbar installed. If the user did have a Google Toolbar, then Google could collect the data (and it does) and can use it anyway (debatable) (as long as they state so in their privacy policy). In this case, Google does not need to seek permission from Best Buy or Circuit City, because user, by installing the toolbar (and accepting the terms), is giving permission to Google to collect the data.

This brings up few more questions.

• Who owns the data? It is up for debate.
• Is it fair to Best Buy or Circuit City or any other site owners? That is a question that needs a bigger discussion.
• Does Google has power and scale to collect data across sites and do targeting? Absolutely.

Comments?

——————————————————————————–

Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position?

Try WebAnalytics360 Job Board

New Positions

1. Director, Web/E-Commerce Analytics at World Wrestling Entertainment, INC (Stamford, Connecticut)

2. Sr. Web Analytics Manager at NY Times Company (New York, New York)

——————————————————————————–

Pay-Per-Click Behavioral Targeting

Last year I wrote extensively about major online players Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL using Behavioral Targeting. Microsoft and Yahoo have been very open about it but Google has not admitted openly about engaging in Behavioral Targeting.

I speculated about Google entering Behavioral Targeting, you can read my past blog posts at http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/search/label/google). Recently, Google Analytics Data Sharing option reconfirmed my belief about Google entering Behavioral Targeting and using all the data it collects via Google Analytics (and other applications) to better target the ads.

A recent survey by SEMP.org (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) found that four out of five advertisers are willing to increase their online advertising budget in order to add behavioral targeting to their pay-per-click campaigns.
The survey also found that

• 57% of online advertisers were willing to spend more on demographic targeting, such as age and gender
• Advertisers, on average, would pay 11% more for both behavioral and demographic targeting
• Some 40% of the respondents said they are not currently targeting or retargeting searchers but they plan to in the next 12 months

Considering these stats and all the things that I have observed (see my past blog posts), I won’t be surprised if Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and ASK soon start offering behavioral targeting to it’s Paid Search (PPC) advertisers. To get the most of out of behavioral targeting, they won’t limit the behavioral data to search only, they will most likely use every data point they collect about visitors in various places including browser toolbars.

Comments?

Should you be paying for the clicks on your brand keywords?

When you do a search on your brand name or your company name, chances are that you will have you company’s site listed as the top organic result. If it is not then you should first learn about Search Engine Optimization before reading this post (email me and I can help you with all your SEO/SEM needs).
It is also very likely that there won’t be any paid listing on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) when you do a search on your own brand name.
If you do buy paid search listing, it is going to appear just above you’re your own organic listing. Is it a good idea to buy the paid listing and pay the money to Search engine for something you could have got for free (next listing after paid is also yours)? And visitor by searching on your brand name has shown their intent of visiting your site.
If you use an agency, I am sure that your agency is already buying your brand keywords and showing you how good your conversion is on your aggregate keyword buy. Well if a consumer is already looking for your brand name then their intent is very clear, they are ready to be converted. A lot of users use brand keyword in search to get to a particular site, they use built in search functionality in their toolbars (Google, yahoo, msn etc) which then takes them to SERP of the toolbar provider. If a user is looking for your site and you know you will be number 1 in the SERP, does it make sense to buy a keyword? Isn’t it unnecessary? Won’t you be wasting your money?
Some might argue that buying that keyword reinforces your brand name and your site in visitors mind and hence you will result in more click-through, visitors, conversion and ROI. But how can you be sure? That’s exactly what I am going to show you in this article.
The first and foremost thing is to understand what value you are getting from your search marketing efforts, paid and organic. Once you understand the complete impact of both types of Search Marketing efforts you will be able to make an informed decision. A decision that will be based on your ultimate business goals e.g. increase site traffic, increase conversion, increase ROI or a combination.
Here is my 5 step process to determine if you should buy Paid Search on your brand name keyword or not.

1. Configure Web Analytics Tool: The first step is to configure your web analytics tool so that it can measure and report on the traffic for your brand keywords in 3 separate segments, paid, non-paid and total,. Below is a screen shot from Google Analytics showing paid, non-paid and total for a particular keyword. (I will not cover how to configure your tool since they all have different configuration. I will be able to help you if you email me).
   

2. Develop Baseline: Develop a baseline for total traffic and conversion for the three segments (paid, organic, and paid and organic for your brand keywords). See how much traffic is generated by each segment and how much of that traffic is converting.
3. Test: This is the crucial step in determining if you should buy your brand name keyword or not. If you are not currently running paid ad then this step is much easier than if you already have the paid search running. If you already have the paid search running, you have to be willing to take a chance to do this test. It might not work out in your favor but unless you try it you will never know.
   1. Paid search already running:
      Stop the paid keyword for your Brand Keywords – Stop the keyword for time enough to generate significant traffic and conversion data.
   2. Paid Search Not Currently Running:
      Start the paid search for your Brand Keywords – Start the paid search campaign for time enough to generate significant traffic and conversion data.

4. Report the numbers: Report the new number with your baseline. Putting them side by side will help in easy comparisons (See the example below)
5. Analyze the data: Let’s take a look at an example which will help you with analysis.

Example:
Let’s look a company, whose brand keywords generates on an average of 150 searches. Let’s assume that conversion rate on these keywords is of 50% , cost per click on paid placements in $0.50 and profit margin on each conversion is $3
A typically time period, when you have both Paid search running, results in the following data

Table 1

You get 100 click throughs, 80 from organic and 20 from paid.
* Total Profit on Paid Efforts = (Profit Margin on Conversion * Conversion resulting from Paid Search) – Total Cost of Paid Search. This calculation only uses CPC cost and does not include agency and other direct or indirect cost. Other costs associated with buying, placing and reporting will further add to total cost.
So far, it all looks good, your paid search efforts are paying off and you continue to keep buying your own Brand name keyword.
Now stop running the paid searches.
Now let’s take a look at numbers when you stop running the paid search. Using the same assumptions as above

1. A conversion rate of 50%
2. Cost Per Click of .50 cents
3. Profit Margin on each conversion is $3

Table 2

* Total Profit on Paid Efforts = (Profit Margin on Conversion * Conversion resulting from Paid Search) – Total Cost of Paid Search. This calculation only uses CPC cost and does not include agency and other direct or indirect cost. Other costs associated with buying, placing and reporting will further add to total cost.

Since there is no paid search listing, all of the 100 clicks (assuming same number of clickthoughs) will go to organic. Say now instead of 100 (that you got when you had paid search running) you only get a toal of 96 and rest of the 4 go to your competitor or somebody else who shows up under your brand name in organic listing.

Now we have all the data we need, let’s put them side by side and compare

Table 3

Paid search placements result in a total of 100 (from paid and organic) while only organic results in 96. Your cost per conversion from paid is $1.00 and you are making $20 in profit from your paid search efforts. It all looks good.
Now, let’s take a look at the results in another way.

Table 4
*Assuming you have basic SEO for your brand keywords.
**Cost Per Extra Conversion = Cost for paid search/(Additional conversions you gained by running paid search)
As you see above you only get 2 more and not 10 conversions by participating in paid search.

You only get 2 more conversion by paid listings and not 10 as paid listing report was showing. You got 48 conversions when you stopped paid listings and 50 when you used paid listing. So effectively you paid $10 for 2 more conversions. That is $5 per conversion not $1.00 as you agency might have reported on your paid search listing report.

So in light of this information, here is your profit and loss statement.

As you see above you have a loss of $4.00 instead of a profit of $20 on your paid search efforts on your Brand keywords.

Note that above example in only for illustrations so you have to look at your own number and test them to see if you are making or losing money. As I showed above this issue is really significant on branded keywords but you should apply the same login to your non-branded keywords too and see if you are losing money or making money by participating in paid search.

Please send me an email if you would like the excel sheet for these calculations so that you don’t have to recreate it. Also email me if you would like a PDF version of this post.

Here is an example where, I think, the company is losing money by buying their own brand keyword.

They should probably file a complaint with Google to not sell their brand name to the ToyRMall (listed on the right hand side sponsored listing) and not but their own brand name keyword. Most of the listings on the first page of SERP point to ToysRUs site anyway.

So are you wasting money? Chime in.

Even though I have written about the brand name keyword, you should do this exercise with your top keywords to make sure you are not losing money.

Note: After I had written this post, I found out that Gary and Gary had also written post on this same topic (Thank you Jaimie Scott, for sending me these links).

Web Analytics, SEO and Online Marketing Posts from 2007

I have compiled a list of some of the web analytics posts that I wrote in 2007. In case you missed them or want to read again, here they are:

Web Analytics

• Understanding time spent of site – I have come across this KPI over and over again. Many of my clients want to report it on frequent basis and some even have this as one of their goals for the site. However, I am surprised to find that not many people (not even a lot of web analysts) understand how this metrics is calculated and what this is actually reporting. This post explains what time spent on site or a page means and how it is calculated.
• Referring Domain Demystified – This two part series explains how referring domains are reported by the web analytics tools.
  1. Referring Domains Demystified – Part II
  2. Referring Domains Demystified

• Bounce Rate Demystified – This post answers three questions about bounce rate
  1. What is bounce rate?
  2. What is the industry standard for bounce rate?
  3. What causes high or low bounce rates?

• Are you doing Web Reporting or Web Analytics? – This post clears the confusion between Web Reporting and Web Analytics.
• Books Recommended by Web Analysts – If you are starting a career in web analytics or are already working in this field but are looking for some good reads then this list is for you. Please note that this is not a list of recommended books by me, these are from the analysts I interviewed (except for Competing on Analytics). I have not even read most of these books yet.

Online Marketing

• Targeting Cart Abandonment By Email – This post provides some steps that you should include into your process for using email incentives when you target users who abandon shopping cart on your site.
• What does Website Optimization mean? – Depending on your role in the organization you might have define Optimization which might not be the same as somebody else in a different role. The people responsible for different pieces of website optimization do not understand the complete picture and are locked in their own definition of website optimization. This article explains what optimization means.
• Do you really need a home page? – Home page has long been the focus of attention of most of the marketers. But should it be? This post shows you how you might be missing on a huge opportunity by focusing on just the home page of the site.
• 10 steps for measuring online advertising success – This post shows my 10 steps process for measuring the online advertising success, nothing fancy, a simple straight forward process that will improve your bottom line.

SEO

• Relying too much on SEO? Think Again. – A lot marketers are getting too obsessed with traffic driven to their sites from Google, Yahoo, Live (MSN), ASK etc without thinking about the consequences of dropping off from search engines rankings. I understand that it is relatively cheaper (notice I did not say Free) than paid inclusions, banner ads, affiliates etc. And ranking high on search engine is something to be happy about and proud of, ranking high on search engines provides you competitive advantage. But Free comes with risks.
• Follow the Search – Search is a powerful (relatively free) way to generate site traffic. However it also results in huge bounce rate, this article talk about a simple way to engage these users and decrease the bounce rate which increasing the conversion.

Google Web History: Google and Behavioral Targeting – The Beginning

Google launched a new service called
Google Web History This service will allow users to keep an archive of their web browsing history. The service will also allow integrated web and search history to personalize results based on previous search and viewing patterns.
This service requires a Google account and the Google Toolbar, and users will be able to access their histories from any computer with the service enabled.
As I have been talking about Google and Behavioral Targeting, this is one of the steps towards that goal. Google will track everything you do (of course with your consent) and then in near future will show you targeting ads based on this information.
Side Note: The most interesting thing to watch will be the effect on organic search listings. This is the free source of traffic (sort of free) that a lot of sites have become dependent on but with all the personalization they are bound to get hit.
To ease the privacy, this service is not enabled by default. It also requires PageRank feature in Google Toolbar to be manually enabled. Also, there is an easy way to remove items from you history, however not sure if Google will still keep those in their logs to understand a users behavior.
Giving user an option to opt-in instead of opt-out is the right approach to Personalization and Behavioral Targeting. I believe if you show the users the value and benefits for targeting and let them make the choice then you will create loyal customers and won’t have to deal with privacy backlash.
Stay tuned for more data integration news from Google, this is just the beginning.
I just enabled this services so am going to take it for test drive.

Google and Behavioral Targeting Part III – Google Buys Doubleclick

Google buys Doubleclick for record 3.1 Billion.

Remember 1999 – 2000 when Doubleclick tried Behavioral Targeting but had to shut down efforts due to privacy concerns. Since then things have changed. Many Behavioral Targeting networks have sprung up. Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda provided several reasons why BT will work now.

Will Google revive BT capabilities of Doubleclick? As I wrote earlier in my blog posts Google is preparing for the largest BT network (see my previous articles) and this is one of the biggest step deep into that direction and further confirms what I wrote in my article.
See my old posts at
Google and Behavioral Targeting
Google and Behavioral Targeting Part II

Here are quotes from Sergey Bin, Google’s Co-Founder & President, Technology and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google on Doubleclicks’s acquistion. Source: Yahoo
“It has been our vision to make Internet advertising better – less intrusive, more effective, and more useful. Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers,” said Sergey Brin.
“DoubleClick’s technology is widely adopted by leading advertisers, publishers and agencies, and the combination of the two companies will accelerate the adoption of Google’s innovative advances in display advertising,” said Eric Schmidt.
So far Google analytics, Adsense, Google checkout codes were only available on small – medium size websites. With this deal the big brand sites will have Google code on their sites as well (DoubleClick Publishers and Advertisers). Obviously by having a code on virtually every site on the internet Google will have such a wealth of information about individuals (see my previous article) that it will be foolish for them to not use that information to target individuals with ads that match their interest shown by online (soon they will tie in offline with something like GoogleTV, Google Times, Google Radio and so on) behavior.

Another effect of the widespread code of Google could be the death of companies like Alexa, Compete comscore etc. Google can provide the internet usage data that won’t be based on a sample of those who participate (voluntarily or by installing some kind of application such as a toolbar) but on the Google cookies which will be on almost every single computer connected to the internet. However, this business might not be so lucrative for them. Why would they want to let others know how people use internet when they can use it to make it Googlenet (formerly known as internet) or GWW – Google Wide Web (formerly know as World Wide Web).

You are about to enter the world of Targeting.

Books Recommended by Web Analysts

In past two months I have interviewed a few web analysts. One of the questions that I asked all these analysts was about the web analytics, SEO and marketing books that they have read or are planning to read. In this post I compiling a list of books recommended by these web analysts.

If you are starting a career in web analytics or are already working in this field but are looking for some good reads then this list is for you. Please note that this is not a list of recommended books by me, these are from the analysts I interviewed (except for Competing on Analytics). I have not even read most of these books yet.

Here is the alphabetical list of books:

Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisions	Jason Burby and Shane Atchison
Big Book of KPIs	Eric Peterosn
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant	W. Chan Kim , Renée Mauborgne
Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results	Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, Lisa T. Davis
Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning	Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris
Drilling Down: Turning Customer Data Into Profits With A Spreadsheet	Jim Novo
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data	Stephen Few
Measuring the Success of Your Website: A Customer-centric Approach to Website Management	Hurol Inan
Search Analytics: A Guide to Analyzing and Optimizing Website Search Engines	Hurol Inan
Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site	Mike Moran, Bill Hunt
Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten	Stephen Few
Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Websites	Andrew Chak
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More	Chris Anderson
Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing	Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, Lisa T. Davis
Web Analytics Demystified: A Marketer’s Guide to Understanding How Your Web Site Affects Your Business	Eric Peterson
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day	Avinash Kaushik
Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success	Jim Stern
Web Site Measurement Hacks: Tips & Tools to Help Optimize Your Online Business	Eric Peterson

As per Apurba’s recommendation I just ordered Blue Ocean Strategy. I also ordered Competing on Analytics, this was recommended by a friend of mine. I am also going to order Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisions and Web Analytics: An Hour a Day when they come out.

Have you read any books that you would like to recommend? Send it to me and I will include them in my next update.

Here are all the interviews if you missed them
Interview with Web Analysts
Web Analyst Interview: Julien Coquet
Web Analyst Interview: Adam Berlinger
Web Analyst Interview: Michael Notte
Web Analyst Interview: Thomas Carrillo
Web Analyst Interview: Joel Collymore
Web Analyst Interview: Apurba Sen
Web Analyst Interview: Pere Rovira
Web Analyst Interview: Scott Baldwin

Google and Behavioral Targeting Part II

In my last article titled “Google and Behavioral Targeting” I talked about how Google is putting its footprint all over the web and could be preparing for the largest Behavioral Targeting Ad network.

I got several emails in response to that article. Two main questions that were raised are:

1. Won’t there be technical challenges to aggregate all this data and make it meaningful for behavioral targeting?
2. Won’t there be privacy and trust issues if Google were to go that route?

This article is to address these two concerns.

1. Technical Challenges
   Yes technical challenges will be there but that’s why I believe if anybody can successfully do it today then it is Google. Last I head Google had a pretty good team of engineers. If all the best engineers can’t overcome these technical challenges then Google should change its hiring process. In my opinion technical challenges are not such a big deal. Even if you delete a cookie Google will be able to identify a visitor via their Google account. This is where Google has the biggest advantage over other BT networks such as Tacoda or Revenue Science.
2. Privacy and Trust Issues
   Privacy and trust issues are everywhere on the internet.
   Google will of course have to get a buyoff from all the parties involved i.e. consumer, advertisers, publishers etc. Below I show how they could get a buyoff from each one of them.

1. Consumers – How many consumers know what the cookies are? Not a lot. How many know that they are being targeted online in some way e.g. Google Personalized Search? Not a lot. How do Behavioral Targeting companies target the visitors on their network? They give visitor an option to OPT-OUT. Yes, they opt-in visitors by default and then give them an option to opt-out. Can’t Google do that? Sure. They could opt-in everybody, just like they opted me in on personalized search. Yes I can opt-out but how many visitors do know the meaning of opt-in or opt-out? So getting a visitors buy-in is simple. To calm any privacy and trust issues give users a tiny little link to opt-out.
2. Publishers – There are two avenues to sever ads today, these same avenues could be used to serve BT ads.
   1. Google Search – Their own search engine, they don’t need anybody permission to target ads here, they own the site.
   2. Adsense Publishers – How many Adsense publishers really know how Google chooses what Ads to show on their site? I don’t think anybody really knows. If Google starts showing behavioral targeted ads than what do Publishers have to loose? Nothing. Instead their click-thoughs will go up resulting in an increase in their revenue. It will be a huge win for them. No privacy or trust issues here.

3. Advertisers – They will benefit the most from this network. They will get quality visitors to their site. Visitors who are really interested in the advertisers offer will be targeted. These visitors will be determined via their behavior on the Google network. Easy buyoff here.
4. Providers of Behavior – These are the individual sites on which the behavior will be collected. Such sites include Google Search, those using Google Analytics, AdSense Publishers, Google Checkout Sites, and Advertisers etc. This will be the hardest to convince and this will be the main source of all the behaviors. Let’s take them one at a time
   1. Google Organic Search – Nothing new here, organic searches are easy to collect behavior on since nobody is paying for it. Google can do (and is doing – personalized search) whatever they want to.
   2. Advertisers – Advertisers will mind if the click behavior on their ads is used to help their competitors. However, if Google gave them a way to filter their competitors than they might have a lesser issue. To make it even better for them Google could provided them some free advertising in lieu of letting Google use the click behavior on their ads. Google can make up for all these free advertising by charging a higher rate for behaviorally targeted ads.
   3. Google Checkout Users – Same as advertisers, they might let you use the behavior only if you don’t empower their competitors with that knowledge. So if I am selling dress shoes, I don’t want you to empower somebody else selling dress shoes but you can use it for advertisers who are selling dress shirts. Again, Google will have to provide a way to filter out competitors or certain types of sites. You provide a good enough incentive and site might be ready to participate.
   4. AdSense publishers – A majority of the publishers are small content sites and they make their money via Google Adsense. They will let you use the behavior on their site if you provide them incentive. Well there are two incentives that I think will do the trick.

   1. Allow them to make more money from the Adsense network – Google will pay higher click-though for behavioral targeted ads (they will charge more) if the publisher agrees to allow them to use the behavior on their site for the behavioral ad targeting.
   2. They might be able to monetize those users who have left their site. Google might be able to provide a cut for their (Adsense publishers) traffic that they use in Behavioral Targeting, if I make a cent for every visitor I get on my site just by participating in Behavioral targeting network won’t that be great? Again, as long as I can filter out the sites I don’t want to benefit from my sites visitor behavior. How you can monetize when visitor leaves your site will be covered in detail in another post.

   5. Google Analytics User – Same as Adsense publishers if you provide them incentives a lot of them will be able to sign-up as long as it is not empowering their competitors. As mentioned above in 4 b, Google might be willing to pay for your visitors by having them use their behavior in the BT network. Alternatively Google might keep this tool for Free for only those who will allow them use their visitors’ behavior and charge a fee to others. Why will a company give anything for Free?

This is my view on how Google could get all different players involved in their BT network and build the largest BT network.

I welcome any comments.

Search Retargeting – My View

I recently read an article on ClickZ by Robin Neifield title Search Retargeting It’s ready. Beahviroal Targeting networks currently selling search retargeting include Advertising.com, BlueLithium, and Revenue Science.

Basic concept behind Search Retargeting is to target Visitors who come to your site via search and then leave without converting. The idea is to reintroduce them with relevant message on the network once they leave your site.
For example a Visitor searches for cellphone arrives at your site (that cells cellphone and other electronics) but than leaves without buying one. Sometime in future (next day or whenever) visitor arrives to a news site (which does not cell phone), the visitor is shown a targeted message from your company trying to bring the visitor back to your site so that visitor can purchase the cellphone.

In a nutshell what these networks selling Search Retargeting are implying is that the fact that visitor searched something on a search engine and then clicked on paid or organic listing to arrive at a site is a strong indication that a visitor is interested in a particular products/service. I agree that such a behavior (searching for a keyword) indicates strong interest.

But isn’t the fact that visitor who arrived to the site (no matter how) and looked at product pages (cell phone in above example) indicates the visitors strong interest? Isn’t the whole idea of behavioral targeting based on determining visitor intent via their behavior on site or on the network? So why only target those visitors who arrived via search? Is search stronger indication than on-site behavior? Maybe it is, I don’t think Behavioral Targeting companies will agree with that. By just focusing on retargeting the user who arrived via search only you will be missing out an opportunity to fully utilize Behavioral Targeting. So why do I think so?

Let’s look at a scenario of a visitor:

A visitor searches “cell phone” on a search engines and lands on your site. As soon as visitor arrives on your site you should make an attempt to engage the visitor by having a well designed and optimized landing page. If the landing page is generic then you should use the tactic I described in my article title “Follow the search”. Granted not everybody buys in the first session and so you need to target them with right message based on their behavior (intent to purchase cell phone in this case) even after they leave your site, this is behavioral targeting.

Now there are two scenarios after the visitor arrives on your site.
1.Visitor looks further into the site – Great you landing page probably has done its work. Which leads into the following two scenarios
a.Visitor converts
b.Visitor does not convert
2. Visitor leaves the site without looking further than landing page – Your landing page or the offers are not enticing enough for this visitor.

Let’s analyze each of these scenarios one at a time

1a. If Visitor looks around and converts then no more targeting need. Mission accomplished.

1b. Visitor looks deeper into the site and then leaves without converting– In this case you need to target them. But the question is – How is this visitor different from those visitors who did not come via search and then browsed you site for cellphones? Didn’t their behavior showed that they were interested in cellphones and need to be retargeted?

So my point is that weather a visitor comes from search or some other way, if they have looked around on your site for a particular category or product and their behavior (on site usage) show they are in market or aremost likely to buy a product then they should be retargeting (if you are going to invest time an money in retargeting). How does it make a difference how they arrived to the site? Search is one more element of the behavior but on site behavior (BT Company’s core strength) is suggesting the same thing. By Offering Search Retargeting are BT companies indicating that search is better indicator than on-site behavior so we should only target those visitors who came via search? Does not make sense to me because this goes against their core offering which was based on the premise that onsite behavior is a better indicator of visitors interest.

2b. If a visitor leaves the site without going any further then you have a bigger problem which won’t be solved by search retargeting. It won’t matter how user arrived at your site. It requires landing page optimization and over all product/or service that your company offers. No matter how much you retarget if your landing page sucks or you don’t have the products or services that Visitors want then you are not going to convert.

If BT networks are going to place their bets on search retargeting (by showing that search is a better indicator than onsite behavior) than they better watch out because Google, Yahoo or MSN will have a more understanding and control of Search than them. For example, Google knows a lot more about visitor’s search behavior (I am not talking about Google and Behavioral Targeting that I talked about last month). Google knows not only which keyword drove visitor to your site but also which other sites the visitor clicked on before and after. Google also know what kind of keywords and keyword combinations (e.g. cellphone battery or buy a cellphone) Visitor searched before or after she searched “cellphone” to reach to you site, this is far better information for retargeting than just knowing “cellphone” keyword drove them to your site. Google can easily target the Visitor with their “Personalized Search” or Adsense network.

What do you think? I would like comments from BT providers as well as those who have tried search retargeting.