It's hard to make sense of today's crowded targeting landscape. With nearly 100 self-proclaimed ad networks and targeting providers to choose from, how can an advertiser possibly choose the right solution without investing months in due diligence? Most networks offer fundamentally different targeting services: many group placements into interest categories (e.g. sports, weather, etc.), Google facilitates contextually relevant placements on specific sites, AlmondNet utilizes past search behavior, Revenue Science offers publisher surfing profiles, Yahoo! has strong geotargeting capabilities fueled by their registration information, Claria targets off information passed back through their desktop application, and Advertising.com uses action tags.

Whoever said, "I know half of my advertising works, I just don't know which half," did not know at the time where Internet advertising would be today and where TV advertising will be tomorrow. Putting the hot cookie deletion issue aside for a moment, our ability to track from investment to fulfillment with online media is superb, at least in comparison to traditional media.

Two perceptions many advertisers have are: "Behavioral marketing is something you only buy from a publisher or ad network." Behavior is a "hands-off" observation like a science experiment in a glass case.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."--Albert Einstein Take dear Albert's quote, and sprinkle liberally with the not-quite-as eloquent phrases "ad-side BT" and "pub-side BT," and you'll have a fairly good diagnosis of today's situation. Behavioral targeting providers across the spectrum tout the essential rightness of their particular flavor of BT. But in our collective heart of hearts, we know that each of the approaches has merit--and more importantly, that each can benefit from the other. This article will help define the landscape, and more importantly, make a call for some of these …