Affiliate Marketers Don’t Behave. Do You?

Behavioral Targeting Ads As companies like 24/7 Real Media and Tacoda begin to serve more behavioral targeted ad campaigns, I wonder when the affiliate marketing industry will consider this approach as part of its lead & sales generation process. I briefly talked about a seminar that I had attended where behavioral targeting was the hot topic. In a nutshell, behavioral targeting is serving an ad based on web properties (websites that are part of a predefined advertising network) where users have previously visited.

Behavioral Targeting in Affiliate Marketing
Currently, I am not aware of behavioral targeting taking place in the affiliate marketing industry. Effectively, I see affiliate websites as web properties within the predefined network similar to that of the CPM world. If an end user does visit affiliated websites, there could be a possibility of presenting targeted offers based on past behavior. For instance, if after a few website hops and no click was generated, the offer may be rotated and a more enticing ad is served to try and garner a click. Secondarily, if clicks are happening but no sale has resulted, an enhanced offer could be presented within the sales tunnel to try and close that opportunity.

Benefits of Behavioral Targeting

    Advertisers: Increase efficiency of ad serving – i.e. serving ads only to targeted users who are in a segment of the predefined network can lead to a lower cost of acquisition; network segmentation also allow ads to be more targeted when running brand marketing campaigns
    Publishers: Earn more for serving targeted ads within relevant websites (or sections within a website); ability to serve more relevant ads to users
    Networks: Offer an effective method for advertisers & publishers to work together at generating leads & sales or marketing a brand
    Users: Receive more relevant & perhaps better offers during online experience

As with offline direct and multi-level marketing, success of affiliate marketing is due in part to a trusted source when referrals for products or services are made. The way I see it, behavioral targeting can play a positive role in this type of one-to-one marketing. Affiliate marketers are adaptive and will find a way to deliver more relevant ads so I think it will only be a matter of time before behavioral targeting becomes a norm in this marketing space. Of course, only time will truly tell.

There is increasing evidence that behavioral targeting can work for advertisers. As a reference, Ari Bluman from 24/7 Real Media shares how behavioral targeting positively affects click-through rates. Here is a behavioral segmentation case study showing how behavioral targeting can lower cost of acquisition.

Author
Ian Lee
Work from home dad, marketer and photographer. Fallen in love with basketball all over again as I coach my daughter's team.

1 thought on “Affiliate Marketers Don’t Behave. Do You?”

  1. I enjoyed reading your post. Internet marketing is growing very fast in the IT industry. Internet marketing is now becoming a part-time business for many individuals.

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