Behavioural ads on the rise

Don't be surprised if you now start seeing advertisements that are of interest to you when you surf the web. Portals such as Google, Yahoo and MSN have started targeting internet users and displaying advertisements based on surfing patterns. Termed 'behavioural advertisement', the exercise helps advertisers roughly know the proportion of users "� based on particular keyword searches "� who are interested in certain market segments, as well as the demographic breakdown of these users.

While MSN and Google introduced behavioural ads some time ago, Yahoo is the the new kid on the block. "Behavioural advertising works on an idea, that user downloads some software, usually for some other intent, and the software records where he goes and what he does online. The software provides us the mechanism to display a pop-up ad based on the user's behavior or interest in web content," says George Zacharias, MD, Yahoo! India. "Pop-up based ads will be graphical type and are expected to be introduced next year. At the moment, this practice is undertaken by companies in the US and European countries," adds Zacharias.

MSN India's head of programming Krishna Prasad says, "We call it next generation ads. It enables marketers to deliver ads to consumers based on their recent online behavior "� i.e., what they recently bought (or basketed and didn't buy), where they surfed, or what they searched for. Based on this information, ads can be tailored to drive users back to the advertiser's site to complete the desired registration, purchase, or other action."

The world's leading search engine Google, too, displays contextual advertisements for online customers. There is also a software called end-user license agreement which record the behaviour, collect information about websites you access and will use that information to display advertising on your computer.

Advertising.com's study in October 2005 found that behavioural advertising converts at a significantly higher rate than contextual advertising (a program in which advertisers' paid listing appear on web sites containing content relevant to the listings). Major ad networks offering behavioral targeting use different methods to collect the data. Often this data is gathered through the use of publisher programs, where webmasters allow their visitors to receive a cookie or image when they land on a site.

The largest obstacles are privacy concerns and the protection people enable on their computers to ensure their privacy. This includes ad-blocking programs, not accepting third-party cookies and programmes or settings that automatically clear cookies daily or at the end of each browser session. Another problem of behavioral advertising is the inability to differentiate between multiple users' surfing habits on the same computer "� common on a shared computer.

Behavioral targeting is definitely an up and coming ad format, even though it accounts for a relatively small percentage of online advertising. Globally, only around eight per cent of all online advertising is behaviorally targeted. However, with the major players gettting into the game, the scene will surely change.