What is behavioural targeting?
It is possible to target consumers on-line based on the behaviours they exhibit. It could be that some consumers show a particular interest in a certain vertical which is relevant to your product or service – for example, the consumer may visit a lot of holiday sites and you sell travel insurance or the consumer may be browsing property sites and you may be offering a removals service. It could be that some consumers have specifically searched for your product or service on a website and you could then target them across a network of sites based on that behaviour.
What is re-targeting?
Re-targeting is very similar to behvioural targeting and it can be very rewarding if used correctly. When a consumer is on-line and they visit your website and leave without completing a transaction, you can target your advertising to that consumer while they are browsing within the network that you advertise in. It is possible to target consumers on a very granular level, even showing them banners containing the products that they have recently viewed.
How do behavioural targeting and re-targeting work?
Most websites have a piece of code which presents on the page as a single pixel. As a consumer, when you load an internet page the code sends a message for a file to be dropped on your computer called a cookie and that cookie records parts of your browsing history. As you travel around the internet more information could be added to that cookie and more cookies could be dropped on your computer and all of that information will be used to target relevant advertising campaigns to you. Behavioural targeting can be a very powerful technique to aid conversions and return on investment.
Should you be behaviourally targeting and re-targeting consumers?
Yes! Once again, it is important that you remember that consumers are not specifically searching for your product or service when they are presented with your banners, but with the use of behavioural targeting, they may as well be. The segment of consumers that you are able to target with behavioural targeting is likely to be limited and the segment of consumers you are able to re-target is likely to be even smaller – but the quality of leads of leads will be worth the effort.
