Marketers are not surprised and it isn't at all shocking to online consumers. Both have long been concerned about the intrusive marketing methods that rely on the use of cookies or online trackers to monitor a user's every movement online.
Behavioral targeting methods involve the placement of pixel or cookie trackers into a user's web browser. This allows the marketer to track a user's online browsing habits within a session and thereafter in order to analyze a user's behavior online so that they can provide advertisements for products and services that are - supposedly - relevant to the user based on prior browsing interests. Many online users and legislators view these practices as fundamentally intrusive. Plenty of software applications and browser features have been designed to specifically prevent such tracking from occurring, but the results are mostly hit or miss.
The fact that's almost always overlooked in the "Do Not Track" discussion is that these methods are also often ineffective. This is in part because an individual's browsing habits are not necessarily a reflection of her purchasing habits. For example, an adventurous young boy who hopes to travel around the world some day might spend a good deal of time researching and reading about exotic locations - however, at his age, he isn't an ideal candidate for travel packages, cruise ship tickets or air flights. Browsing habits are simply one data point from which one could infer interest, but in nearly every case, an inference cannot confirm being in the market or having the ability to pay. For marketers, this means that their efforts and ad spend has been wasted on an individual who isn't at the proper life stage or affluence level to invest in their products.
According to the CMA's study, only seven in 10 consumers were aware that their online habits were being tracked by marketing agencies. In addition, 53 percent of users assert that most (nine out of 10) online advertisements that they're exposed to are irrelevant to their needs or desires. When it comes to their feelings on online advertising in general, 58 claim that they don't mind the advertisements and actually appreciate seeing coupons, deals and promotions that are relevant, especially from businesses that they've dealt with in the past. However, most users - 79 percent - say they feel that the internet is not necessarily a safe and secure venue, and that they would prefer to have greater control over the material that they're exposed to online.
The study also indicated that the more technologically advanced users are, the more likely they are to proactively take steps to block cookies, further limiting the reach of marketers. Between the inefficiency of tagging browsers inappropriately as inferred prospects and the efforts of tech-savvy users to block cookies altogether, campaigns based on behavioral targeting are increasingly becoming challenged by insufficient reach and wasted impressions on unqualified inventory.
Semcasting's IP Audience Zones provides a solution for online marketers. IP Audience Zones doesn't rely on the placement of cookies and single points of inferred interest. IP Audience Zones provides nearly 100 percent reach and can't be blocked by online users. The relevance of a targeted audience is confirmed by hundreds of data points. IP Audience Zones uses predictive modeling to determine the most qualified, target-ready audience for a campaign. By incorporating high-quality demographic and psychographic information that is readily available to the public and that encompasses more than 750 data variables, IP Audience Zones creates over 5.2 million target ready zones with more than 70 million demographic combinations- helping marketers identify online user preferences and deliver relevant advertisements to qualified audiences. The IP Audience Zones targeting method improves the consumer experience, broadens ad exposure to the correct audience by having 77 times more accurate targeting than geo-location targeting and 3+ times the reach of cookie-based targeting while delivering the best possible return-on-investment.
Semcasting : Jun 1, 2016 10:00:12 AM
