"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 …

There's an old saying, "You get what you pay for." Unfortunately, in today's crowded behavioral targeting and ad network industries, that may not necessarily be true. In the absence of several recommended safeguards, unprotected marketers may be wasting 40 percent or more of their budgets and exposing their brand to damaging content and potential legal liability. By understanding these dangers, smart marketers can take necessary steps to avoid them altogether.

In the last week alone, I have had three clients separately ask the exact same question: "How much is my online advertising and paid search campaigns contributing to my retail store sales?" This usually would not raise an eyebrow, except that last week two other clients asked me: "How much is my offline media influencing my online sales?" Agencies like the one I work for receive these cross-media questions all the time, but as of late I have noticed they are being posed with dramatic frequency. To me it is another sign that we have reached an industry tipping point. …

A number of challenges have dogged the growth of behavioral targeting in the past. First and foremost, perhaps, has been privacy concerns. Lack of detailed standards or laws (especially from the naturally global perspective that is the Internet) created a bit of a "Wild West" setting with players taking positions everywhere from Marshall Dillon to Black Bart.

Motorcycle maintenance gets Zen. Business gets Sun Tzu. We in marketing will have to settle for poker. In looking at America's favorite pastime, there are some valuable lessons that can be applied to behavioral targeting and online advertising.

Smart marketers can sometimes be pretty secretive. After all, in the competitive online marketing industry, why would these savvy marketers want to share their recipes for success? And when it comes to the subject of targeted online advertising, you might be surprised at what some of the world's best marketers are doing.

Buying online media has changed considerably over the past two years. It's no longer a buyer's market. We find ourselves at a time when online marketing dollars are increasing dramatically while agencies are not paying close enough attention to the resulting media waste. Demand for placements on well branded sites has outpaced supply, leading to the dual effect of higher CPMs and sold-out inventory (sometimes months in advance). Call up Yahoo! and ask for their home page box unit, and you will see what I mean. In response, I espouse three targeting tactics that when adopted widely will have a …

Last week, Ted Shergalis' Behavioral Insider article made the analogy between behavioral tracking via cookies and barcodes, basically outlining that consumers have faced data tracking in the past and that acceptance boils down to value, i.e.: "What's in it for the consumer?" I couldn't agree with Ted's point more. Certainly there will always be a portion of the population that distrusts and avoids any type of observation. However, for many, the value side of the equation must simply outweigh the privacy concerns.

In the ever-increasing dialogue surrounding cookies and consumer habits or attitudes towards them, many individuals have declared their end is near. Granted, most of these are self-serving proclamations designed to grab headlines and introduce new products, but I would argue, along with my other levelheaded compatriots, that the sky is not falling. Cookies are not dead, they are only evolving.

Is the online apocalypse upon us? Recently, Jupiter published survey results suggesting many online surfers purportedly delete their cookies on a regular basis. Since cookies have emerged as the standard of online measurement and the platform for many targeting variables, it stands to reason that an increase in cookie death would undermine the efficacy and interest in online segmentation and targeting. Is it time to panic? Hardly.