Behavioural Targeting
Slightly off topic from me - I have recently seen the impact of behavioural targeting in advertising. Three of the sites I spend time on are SEO blog SEOmoz, and two of our clients: Steppes Travel and Centreline Air Charter. And recently, when browsing the web, I have been seeing wall to wall ads for luxury safaris, private plane hire, and for SEOmoz.The idea behind behavioural targeting (BT) in advertising is that each time you visit a site, it places a piece of code (known as a "cookie") on your computer. Then, when you visit a site that has advertising, that site reads the cookie on your machine, then serves you relevant ads accordingly. So if you spend lots of time on travel sites, when you browse the web you will see lots of ads for travel sites, because it is assumed that that is what you are interested in.
The feeling I got when I initially realised that I was being shown targeted ads was to be a bit freaked out. It felt a bit like someone was watching me surf the web. There is of course, no person behind the process, just a computer.
These concerns about intrusion and privacy were initially voiced when BT first arrived on the scene a few years ago, but seem to have faded into the background as the practice has become more accepted. I guess BT is here to stay, so we might as well get used to it.
I guess that targeted advertising first came on the scene on Google, back in the late nineties - you type a query into the search engine, it shows you targeted ads. BT is just an extension of that. BT is designed to benefit the consumer, and improve their user experience (UX). So to that end, I guess I can support it.
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