Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Perfect Online Ad, How They Figure It Out

The things online ad companies are able to track is somewhat creepy. Lately online search has taken on a whole new realm of stalker behavior to track our every move and know what we are going to do before we even know. But no matter how scary this may be it is necessary in the online advertising world....and it works.
There was a recent study that proved that "Internet users spend a mere 5 percent of their time actually searching. The rest of the time, they're trolling the vast expanse of Internet space"
What you do when you aren't searching - the other 95 percent of the time you spend online - is gold to advertisers. Yahoo often sells ad space based not on a site's content but on a consumer's online behavior, a growing practice known as behavioral targeting. They know what we are going to do, before we do and they bombard us with tempting ads.
The new age of banner ads is super smart. "Marketers now all have to understand the power of algorithms," she says. Today everything about a fully realized Web campaign - how the creative messages look, what color the ads are, what sites they're placed on and where on each site, what time of day they run and how frequently - is determined at least in part by software applications known as "creative optimizers." (try determining all of this without the software)
There is now instantaneous feedback on display ads and certain programs can change the ad instantly if it proving to be ineffective. One man, Fayyad, leads the pack when it comes to predicting Internet users behavior. Fayyad can probably predict your next move. In fact, he says he can tell with 75 percent certainty which of the 300,000 monthly visitors to Yahoo Autos will actually purchase a car within the next three months. Read more about this guy..

...Is this unreal to anyone else?

1 comment:

Eric S. said...

Evan,
You are right, it is crazy and a lot concerning. With great power comes great responsibility and the internet gives power to anyone willing to learn it's capabilities.
Becoming a positive impact in this industry by creating awareness and promoting education is important for generations to come!
Money can be a blinding force