That is behavioral targeting at it’s finest.

Here’s how it works:
A company operating a website joins an ad network. When you visit a website in the network, a cookie is placed on your browser that begins collecting information. These cookies then track the pages you visit, how long you spend, the searches you make and what articles you read. All this information is then used to segment you into groups with other like-minded browsers. Once you are segmented, when you go to another website in the ad network – no matter what the content of that site is – you can see an ad targeted to your previous online behavior.

So what happened to my boyfriend was that cookies stored in his browser identified that he was shopping for Egyptian cotton sheets online. Because he visited multiple sites, read reviews and compared prices he was probably placed in a segment called “Likely buyer of Egyptian cotton” or something like that. So that a week later when we were reading other blogs in that ad network, we saw ads for good deals on high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets even though the content of the blog had nothing to do with sheets.

The benefits of Behavioral Targeting:

The benefits of behavioral targeting are plenty. First advertisers can get better ROI by improving the performance of their online advertising and secondly, consumers see ads that are relevant. AdAge recently wrote that a world without behavioral targeting or collecting information online “would be like having the same conversation” over and over again. It would also be like the billboards along the highway. Relevant for a few, irrelevant and an eyesore for many more. Why not use the information available to improve the online experience. Otherwise websites would be like Time Square at night: every sign competing for your attention, each new billboard trying to be bigger, brighter and more colorful than the one next to it and almost all of them irrelevant to you.

Benefits for advertisers:
+ Identify potential customers by their behaviors rather than demographics
+ Increase ROI by showing your ad to consumers who are more likely interested in what you have to show them

Benefits for consumers:
+ Exposed to ads that are relevant to you
+ Reduce clutter and nonsensical ads

Some people are getting all up in arms about privacy and the security of all this information being collected. But these fears are largely unfounded. Almost all of the information stored from your browser is kept anonymous and stored in highly secured servers.

Measuring website performance is complex; there are so many things to keep in mind (this will become a major theme of this blog, I can already tell). One common thing people can do is regular analysis of your Google AdWords campaign.

Basically, the idea is like this: your website sells bike saddles so you’ve bid on the keyword “saddle.”  You’ll probably quickly notice that you’re losing money and ignoring potential customers because a) a lot of your clickthrough rate (CTR) is driven by cowboys not cyclists and b) most people don’t know that bikes don’t have seats they have saddles.

Google, being the smartypants they are, has of course thought of this. So you can put in keywords to avoid like “western.” So if someone searches for “western saddle,” your ad won’t show up. You might also want to consider adding “bike seat” because not every knows that when you ride a bike your derrière sits on the saddle, not a seat.

But I’m no expert on AdWords. Andrew Goodman, is the expert; I’m just trying to play catch-up. This guy has written an entire book about it. He’s even created a shorter version of the book that he’s giving away for free over here. I just started reading it but what I like about it so far is that he’s all about measurement and paying attention to the client’s needs.

Lesson of the Day
Today’s lesson of the day came on page 32 of Goodman’s free e-book, Google AdWords, A Brave New World (A Pocket Guide to the Road Ahead).
Don’t be afraid to use less precise keywords. “When you use exact matches only, you’re exhibiting fear of clicks. You’re opting out of potential customers.”
That’s a good lesson.

Currently, this particular edition CA functions as our mouse pad, which I occasionally flip through when I’m bored or waiting for things to download. What strikes me as fascinating about it is that there doesn’t seem to be any firm criteria for which to judge the quality of the work featured in the magazine. For me, being a very quantitative person who likes to measure things, I find this very perplexing.

What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is the fact that there isn’t any concern with whether or not the website serves the needs of the client who commissioned the work. I’m not saying that I don’t think the winners in the issue are awesome – most of it is in fact pretty awesome.

But my question is: did it do anything? Did these really expensive/creative/innovative interactive websites increase sales, help to build brand equity, or bring in new customers? I think I’m a pretty good judge of when a website is cutting edge or new but to me it’s got to perform some function other than just being “creative.”

Maybe the “best” websites aren’t the most “creative”?