• by Shankar Gupta , January 17, 2007

Major Internet publishers Dow Jones Online and USAToday.com have joined Tacoda's behavioral targeting network, which allows publishers to run ads targeted based on readers' behaviors across all of Tacoda's sites.

Prior to signing with Tacoda, both Dow Jones Online and USAToday.com parent Gannett had agreements with Tacoda competitor Revenue Science. Dow Jones Online has now ended its relationship with Revenue Science entirely, but Gannett will still use the company's technology to serve behaviorally targeted ads on its daily newspaper and broadcast properties.

Brian Quinn, vice president of sales and marketing for Dow Jones Online, said the company switched to Tacoda because Revenue Science's technology was oversegmenting their audience, which drained sales resources. The oversegmentation, Quinn said, resulted in the sales team spending too much time managing the different categories.

"We became our own worst enemy, in a way--it was too granular," he said. "We never wanted that to be anything more than the icing on the cake. The more granular the segments became, the harder it became to manage, and we felt that the sales team was using it more often than they should."

A spokeswoman for Revenue Science said the loss of the Dow Jones Online business stemmed from a leadership shift. Overall, she said, Revenue Science's client roster is growing. "New leadership came into the advertising department and, as often happens, changes were made," she said. "However, even without Dow Jones, we continue to grow, adding several premium media companies in 2006 including AOL.com, Terra Networks, Car and Driver.com, Nikkei and nearly all of the major newspapers in the UK."

USAToday.com did not return calls for comment.