• by Lynn Russo Whylly , February 2, 2009

I buy a gift online for my niece every Christmas, which results in my getting dozens of children's catalogs all year long. I don't mind my data being collected, but I wish marketers understood that I'm not interested in Lite-Brite, Play-Doh and Legos 11 months out of the year. And that is where consumer purchase intent data exchange BlueKai hopes to change targeting.

Let's say BlueKai has collected cookie data from my computer that says this user is in the market for a hybrid car and an American Girl doll. Well, Christmas is long over; I no longer need the doll. With BlueKai, I can see my own data, and can delete the doll from the data stream. Then, when ad networks, publishers and agencies purchase my (unidentifiable) data from BK, it's more accurate to my needs, increasing their response potential. BK even incentivizes me to clean up my data by offering to donate to a charity.

"There are two ways of buying," says Omar Tawakol, CEO of the one-year-old company. "Large networks tend to say, 'Give me everybody who did the search New York to Las Vegas,'" when placing travel ads between the two cites. Or, he says, another approach is to wait until someone's on a network site, then ping BlueKai's database with the question,"'Is this person an in-market auto person?' If the answer is yes, then they offer up an auto ad based on that information."