• by Masha Geller , January 11, 2002

It could have something to do with the laziness of the holidays or with the fact that DoubleClick was very secretive about this latest development, but I completely missed them shutting down their Intelligent Targeting Unit at the end of December.

ITU was the part of DoubleClick that focused on selling profile targeted ads and provided Intelligent Targeting technology to its DART ad serving customers - all of that is now gone.

What's left? DoubleClick will continue to sell impressions, but only in run-of-network or run-of-site buys, or targeted via cookie-based criteria.

The significance of this move, as IAR's Christopher Saunders aptly pointed out, is that "effective profile-based advertising had long been one of online advertising's major promises."

It seems that the promise may have sounded good at the beginning, but the high CPMs associated with profile targeting didn't fit enough advertising budgets to sustain the division. In retrospect, DoubleClick's decision was almost predictable because Engage's media business was built primarily on profile targeting and look where they are now.

Interestingly enough, as IAR reported, DoubleClick says that the company has seen heightened interest from advertisers seeking cookie-based targeting and its clients are using things like frequency capping and geo-targeting more frequently.

Irrespective of that, it pretty obvious that DoubleClick is placing the emphasis on technology and research, rather than on media sales to stay alive.