Behavior is Hot

When I was growing up milk was not delivered at home. I used to

take a vessel each morning to the nearby dairy and the owner would milk the

buffalos and provide fresh milk. He was an astute businessman. He would know

whether we had guests at home and would therefore need more milk. He would even

know if someone was ill and therefore cow's milk would be required. And he

would prompt me to increase the quantity or buy the alternate variety. Today

when I am at a mall and gazing at new gadgets, the good salesman comes up and

provides helpful information. Depending on my interest his enthusiasm goes up or

he moves off to another customer. Both are examples of judging a customers life

pattern and behavior and making a sales pitch accordingly.

As the net makes the world a gigantic marketplace the old

methods are being replaced by the new.

Every time you search for something on Google, you often see a

blue part on top of the listings, which are the premium sponsored links. This

display is fine-tuned regularly. If users tend to ignore the ads-which means

they don't click-they are moved to the right of the page and then moved up

or down depending on usage. User behavior is being harnessed to serve what's

hot.

Microsoft has created specific behavioral segments based on

industry feedback. The network has over 112 million unique users in the US

alone. Microsoft combines the segments with the details their users have given

them, along with the search histories. Using high-end technologies, Microsoft

then develops what they call 'innovative matchmaking service' to deliver the

advertiser's message" to the right user.

Yahoo too has had similar products, Engagers and Shoppers, since

early this year. Engagers is meant for marketers reaching out to those users who

have evinced an interest in buying a product, while Shoppers target those whose

recent behavior demonstrates that they are looking for a product in the market,

and are close to buying.

Behavioral advertising seeks to integrate the customer's

demographic and psychographic profiles with his life patterns within a

contextual framework. An exciting and laudable objective, but not without

problems.

As of today it is limited by the fact that the observation is

the net alone. People spend a lot of time elsewhere. How is that to be factored

in?

There are the usual security and privacy concerns. We have

pop-up blockers from all the providers of software. We also have the same

providers seeking to providing advertising by way of pop-ups.

People do not give complete and correct information on the net

to feel secure and to ensure that they are not subjected to a barrage of

unsolicited promotional messages.

There is an assumption that if an individual is browsing the net

he is in the market to buy something. That is not always the case. One may just

be browsing or researching.

On shared machines, such as family computers or cyber cafes,

there are many users, and search patterns of one could lead to the next user

being shown inconsequential ads.

And lastly-the benefits to the customer are still fuzzy. While

there is a lot of thought on how this would aid the marketer there is not much

to map user benefits.

Will I have to see lesser ads? Will they be really useful for me

at the point of time that they are shown? Will they be geography specific? Will

the offers be goods from quality providers at great prices with a high service?

Eventually, success or failure of technology would be determined

by the answers to the last questions.

The author is editor-in-chief of CyberMedia, the publisher of

Dataquest. He can be reached at shyamm@cybermedia.co.in