That's the debate playing out during the "Re-Thinking Re-Targeting" panel at OMMA Behavioral in San Francisco.
The consensus seems to be that it's part of the bigger ecosystem, and when used
properly, can greatly enhance performance and results.
"We were really disappointed with what behavioral targeting was," said Allen Stern, VP, Media Director, Signal to Noise. "It was such a
black box. And the price we had to pay for it, never paid out."
Now that the industry is beginning to "take the covers off" of the process, Stern said it's become more palatable among online
marketers who can plot the actual return on their spending.
"The old behavioral targeting was harvesting the data from other sites. And the new behavioral targeting is harvesting your data,"
he said.
He said that "scale is still an issue," but that when conducted properly retargeting campaigns can generate better returns than classic behavioral targeting.
"That can be a
very, very small data pool, but it may still be worth doing it, because those folks will just perform better," he said.