Behavioral Intent Targeting: The Right Content To The Right People

This blog post was originally published on Adotas.com

ADOTAS — The familiar real estate mantra is “Location, Location, Location.” In Internet advertising, it all comes down to “Data, Data, Data.” In order to deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time, marketers need to rely on the companies that collect and parse data to fine-tune their messages.

“Online behavioral advertising methods are advancing at an incredibly fast pace,” states Lorrie Faith Cranor, an associate professor of computer science, engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, as reported in “Advertising Gets Personal.” Cranor adds, “There are clearly advantages to receiving relevant ads.”

The last few years have experienced a revolution in utilizing anonymous, non-PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data to better target consumers. Better audience targeting means improved relevance, so marketing messages and offers are useful to consumers, rather than annoying. According to the same article, with the right analytics software, it is now possible to predict a person’s approximate location up to eight weeks in advance with four key data points, based solely on past behavioral patterns. The advantages of more smartly mined data are simple: The more succinct information you have about a prospective consumer’s search and purchasing patterns, the better your company can serve their needs. And by delivering more precisely targeted ads, your company spends less money on ads that are never viewed or clicked.

Here is a basic process overview for collecting behavioral intent data:

1. Content is scanned using natural language processing and advanced semantic analysis engines.
2. Granular topics are identified within the content and associated as metadata to the content.
3. Website visitor or email recipient takes an action, such as the download of particular piece of content.
4. User is associated with specific intent topics based upon metadata of the content.

This information can then be used to offer consumers additional relevant content pieces, including whitepapers, webinars and software, which are further tracked and associated with the buyer. (Think of Amazon’s “You might also like…” as a solid use case). Behavioral intent data enables marketers to deliver actionable data in real-time; track plan-to-purchase trends at the customer level; deliver the right content at the right time; and enable more informed sales follow-up. (Great added benefits here!)

At this juncture, the reader is looking for content to gain information; proactively supplying them with additional information in a timely manner is of use to them, and effective for your metrics. There are other benefits as well. The use of intent data also leads to better inventory management and higher revenue. Specifically referring to how Facebook is buying data from other providers to parse its own information for small business advertisers, the benefits are the same: The audience receives a specifically tailored, relevant message when searching, while the advertiser delivers ads in real-time and saves

money on ineffective ads.

Integrating data into your marketing program will improve results, but as always, marketers must define their objectives before adopting this technique.

Now a few years into the revolution, companies no longer need to invest their own capital into new data integration processes and expensive software. The infrastructure is already there. Companies like Amazon and Target are already leading the intent data movement in the consumer space. These companies track online activities in real-time, across various verticals to collect specific information. By creating a holistic view of potential buyers, you can better serve their interests and information needs.

All that’s left to do is implement. With lifts in response rates in the triple digits, there is no reason not to.