• by Tanya Gazdik , February 26, 2009

Industry veterans Tim Daly and Al Gadbut are launching a "next-generation" behavioral targeting company called ClearSight Interactive that uses intelligent matching techniques and predictive data strategies that won't violate user privacy.

"We have effectively termed our business model permission-based multichannel behavioral targeting--an entirely new concept for the marketplace, given that current BT providers have limited permission from the consumer and can only collect data and disseminate advertising through the online channel," Daly told Online Media Daily.

Daly, formerly with Unreal Marketing, will serve as president and co-founder, while Gadbut is chairman and co-founder. Gadbut's company, AcquireWeb, is the primary investor and also provides data assets for online behavioral targeting. ClearSight Interactive is privately held, with headquarters in Foster City, Calif. and offices in New York and Philadelphia.

"Through our proprietary data collection and verification techniques, ClearSight is able to track behaviors on over 165 million permission-based online users, and has identified approximately 100 million back to the current active IP Address," Daly said.

By bridging IP addresses to verified postal addresses and email addresses, ClearSight is providing a solution that couples both offline and online media in a way that has never been done before, Daly said. "We've connected the online and offline behavioral components. With this connectivity, we are able to bridge offline data knowledge from companies like Experian, Claritas, and others back to unknown online users. Additionally, from a reporting basis, we will be able to help online banner advertisers tie back their offline sales to the online marketing activity through this same connection."

ClearSight Interactive boasts not only one of the largest collections of online users, but has managed to also tie in psychographic consumer behavior to provide a more comprehensive way for advertisers and publishers to target ad campaigns.

Daly, who oversees the daily operations of ClearSight Interactive, brings over 12 years of direct marketing and Internet marketing experience--having served in leadership roles with Fortune 500 companies both on the agency and client side. He oversaw Unreal Marketing's interactive services team that was responsible for the planning and execution of online marketing campaigns for David's Bridal, JP Morgan Chase, SpeedoUSA, and Calvin Klein. Previously, he held similar responsibilities for SendTec, where he founded the company's search engine marketing and media planning divisions.

The company is currently working with a handful of Alpha clients already participating in initial testing efforts. Daly declined to name them at this time.

"Nineteenth century retailing pioneer John Wanamaker once quipped: 'Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.' If Mr. Wanamaker were still with us, I think he'd agree that ClearSight Interactive has resolved his quandary," Gadbut said. "While we are not offering perfection, we are eliminating error. If we can eliminate just 10% of the advertising dollars being wasted on non-target markets, the ROI improvements will be tremendous and beyond the expectation of advertisers and publishers alike."