Google left it up to the individual sites whether or not to participate, but stipulates to do so, publishers must provide new disclosure in their privacy policy and a link to Google's privacy policy. Estimates by Jim Brock, founder of PrivacyChoice, and a former Yahoo senior vice president, suggest about 25% of AdSense sites serve targeted ads.
» Comments

CFOs Don't Click 
Posted by Steve Smith on Oct 30, 2:37 PM
B2B content has always been a tough nut to crack when it comes to ad networking. By its very nature, trade publishing has a highly targeted and highly qualified audience that has often paid off handsomely in print. Your endemic advertisers realized incredible efficiencies by allying their brands and messaging with your content, and in many trade categories there were only one or two venues in which to reach that target. One veteran of the b2b biz told me recently that in the good old days of trade publishing, "all you had to do was roll out of bed in the morning and you could make a ton of money."
» 1 Comments

What's It Like To Be A True Marketing Geek? John Nardone Knows 
Posted by Laurie Sullivan on Oct 28, 4:04 PM
John Nardone, CEO of [x+1], describes himself as a "marketing geek" who became addicted to the "thrill of innovation." As part of the Internet in the early days, many of his projects were the first of their kind. According to Nardone, "I put the first video ad on the Internet, and the first ad online with sound."
» 2 Comments

The Value Of The New Machine 
Posted by Steve Smith on Oct 23, 1:23 PM
One person who has strong views about the way ad networking environments are evolving is Rich Frankel, president of Rocket Fuel, the ad technology platform that combines multiple targeting approaches. Frankel was part of the team that built Yahoo's behavioral targeting network, so he has been around the block and seen the ad technology stack develop in recent years. For Frankel, the process of planning and executing online is perhaps too complicated for humans. He is a big believer in the role algorithms and automation will play in digital advertising's future.
» 3 Comments

BT Thrives In Economic Downturn  
Posted by Laurie Sullivan on Oct 21, 2:19 PM
Thank goodness for the economic downturn. Sounds crazy, right? But without tighter ad budgets, marketers might not have realized the importance of quantifying ad campaigns as quickly as they did. Perhaps that realization also fueled investments in companies with the technology to target marketing and advertising campaigns. In one example of how the recession has been kind to companies focused on behavioral targeting, AudienceScience earlier this week reported securing $20 million in venture capital funding.
» 2 Comments

The Return Of Opt-Out Man: Chaos Before Clarity? 
Posted by Steve Smith on Oct 16, 3:05 PM
As the public profile of online behavioral targeting rises, the search for consumer-friendly ways of addressing the technology, privacy and opt-out procedures accelerates as well. Multiple projects seem to be running in parallel. The IAB is working on standardized ad labeling, explanatory language and procedures that content providers and ad networks can deploy. A number of moving pieces are involved in making this system work, we are told, but some elements are being tested with consumers now. I keep hearing that we will see some evidence of this project on sites and in ads sometime early next year.
» 2 Comments

Virgin Tries On TagMan Container Technology For Size 
Posted by Laurie Sullivan on Oct 14, 2:11 PM
After fielding numerous emails about Web page tag containers that feed real-time data into dashboards, I went back to TagMan to get the scoop. TagMan cofounder Jonathan Baron tells me Virgin Atlantic is testing the company's container that can hold everything from behavioral targeting tags to analytics. Although unconfirmed by Virgin, Baron says the plan will take the technology live across 25 Virgin Atlantic Web sites worldwide on Nov. 4.
» Comments

Asking The Right Privacy Questions 
Posted by Steve Smith on Oct 9, 4:31 PM
Ask anyone whether he or she wants advertising wrapped around a TV show, slipped atop a Web page or crammed into massive blocks of radio air-time, and the answer is now, and always has been, a resounding, "no." And yet we live in and buy into a mediaverse that remains supported fundamentally by the practices we say we don't like. If such surveys of consumer attitudes towards advertising are to be believed, then Americans immerse themselves in experiences and environments that on some level they resent because of the horrors of advertising. What are we to make of such anomalies? Are the attitudes towards advertising actually more subtle than a simple blunt question about it reveals? Are there any questions a surveyor could ask that would get us closer to the consumer ambivalence about marketing messages?
» 5 Comments

Dashboards Combining Analytics, Behavioral Targeting, Marketing Data 
Posted by Laurie Sullivan on Oct 7, 12:59 PM
Marketers have been searching for ways to improve data collection an management since discovering the Internet holds promise for online advertising and behavioral targeting. Some of those promises are found in casual conversations. So, I keep my ear to the ground. And when I hear a company's chairman talk about an industry in need of a specific technology, an application to solve the need is likely on the way.
» 1 Comments