It seems like “the year of the mobile” has been touted ever since the first braying yuppie put their signet ringed finger to DTMF keypad. I’m not going to talk about mobile advertising here, beyond saying I do believe we may finally be at the tipping point. Enough said.
I’m going to talk about the subject of debate I recently had about another ‘Sword of Damocles’ waiting to take the place of mobile advertising – is this the year where targeting technology takes off?
Like mobile advertising, targeting technology has been around for a while. It exists in many forms – a quick brainstorm revealed 11 distinct types of targeting available to digital marketers, ranging from Geographic to Psychographic (personality type) – but almost without exception they are a rarely used weapon of mass attraction within the media agency’s arsenal.
With increasing economic pressure creating an increasing demand for line-by-line justification of marketing spend, it seems like the stage is set for brands to embrace targeting technology as a way of sweating diminishing budgets.
Let’s not forget, one of the big winners of the recession has been Search Marketing. Search advertising is a form of targeting technology – by definition, people searching for “car insurance” are either in the market for car insurance or very bored – but Search is just one element within the online space. The 95% of people that don’t convert are lost to the aether.
Joining up the digital channel spectrum under one over-arching targeting strategy can be a superbly effective method of closing the loop and plugging the leaky bucket. In this way, Search becomes a method for consumer segmentation.
However, despite singing the praises of targeting technology, I can’t ignore the spectre of privacy concerns that may be the yoke currently holding back development and mass adoption. If this is the case, we need to have a grown-up debate to clearly define rules, regulation, and user opt-in procedures to ease consumer (and Brand) fears.
The technology is waiting for us – why is it being ignored?
