In an increasingly mobile world, the landscape of advertising is becoming quite dynamic. With all the smartphone and tablet users out there, advertisements will continue to be more comprehensive to those who are viewing them.
Imagine, every time you log on to your mobile device and tap on the internet, your web activity is being tracked and documented. This valuable information is then instantly processed and sent to online companies. As a result, site publishers can use this data to create defined audience segments based upon visitors that have similar profiles. When visitors return to a specific site or a network of sites using the same web browser, those profiles can be used to allow advertisers to position their online ads in front of those visitors who exhibit a greater level of interest and intent for the products and services being offered.” This highly intuitive approach to advertising is known as “Targeting”.
So what is the significance of this? In the world of advertising, companies have just a few seconds to make an impact on the viewer. To make these precious seconds count, the advertisements must entice the viewer to click on them.
Let’s just say for instance I were to log on to my laptop, peruse footlocker.com to check out the latest Jordan brand shoes being released, and then make my way back over to dell.msn.com to see what’s trending in the news. As I’m browsing, I noticed a few interesting advertisements on the side of the screen. I see picture of Lebron James pulling down a rebound telling me the NBA playoffs start tonight. Below that is an advertisement for a coupon for footlocker. I’m almost immediately interested and so I click.
I had been unknowingly targeted. This form of advertising is becoming increasingly prevalent in the landscape of the internet. On average, targeting secured an average of 2.7 times as much revenue per ad as non-targeted “run of network” advertising and was twice as effective at converting users who click on the ads into buyers. With these numbers, it appears we have found a trend that will eventually become the future of advertising.