Report: Use of Behavioral Targeting to Double

Advertisers will almost double their use of behavioral targeting in the next year, according to a new JupiterResearch survey.

About 13 percent of advertisers currently use behavioral targeting in their campaigns. By next year, 25 percent of those surveyed expect to use the tactic.

“Early adopters are demonstrating its significance, especially advertisers with long purchase cycles,” said JupiterResearch Analyst Emily Riley.

Firms like BlueLithium, Tacoda, Kefta, Tribal Fusion and Revenue Science deliver behaviorally-targeted impressions over publisher networks. A big hurdle to the growth of these players lies in trying to consolidate significant traffic across narrowly defined audiences.

“One way to counteract that is to be a [specialist] with a particular niche,” Riley said. “If you’re able to partner with publishers in a particular vertical, advertisers will come to you.”

Advertisers who were early to adopt behavioral targeting have experienced higher satisfaction rates on campaigns. In the past 12 months, 88 percent of agencies that used behavioral targeting solutions to run their campaigns came out “very or somewhat satisfied,” compared to 56 percent of agencies that did not employ behavioral targeting services.

While behavioral targeting has returned some positive results, it needs to be suited to the individual campaign and marketer. “Advertisers need to make sure that the behavior they’ve decided to target is aligned with the campaign goal,” said Riley.