Behavioral Targeting Online Versus Contextual Online Advertising

Findings: 17 percent more looks on first exposure when targeted to behaviors opposed to content. The figure then jumped up to 54 percent when seen the second time round. Although contextual targeting is good for launching new messages, campaigns sustain more effectively when using behavioral targeting.

Limitations

Only 15 subjects were tested for each of the targeting types so limitations must be set because of the small sample size. This only measures look and time spent, not all economic or attitudinal responses.

Implications

Quantitative results that show attentiveness declines with an increased frequency of contextual targeting isn’t something new.

Concluding Thoughts

Targeting advertising is working and providing a new independent line of evidence. Although there are limitations, as long as further testing isn’t harming advertisers by removing messages from the market, tests should continue to develop this study.

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