In the competitive world of consumer products and services available online, it is no longer sufficient to simply advertise your offerings, hoping that the target audience will relate to the message and be converted into real consumers. It has become increasingly necessary to identify the specific audience who would be a potential consumer and then design your advertising and communication to grab the attention of this segment. A detailed research and strategy needs to be formulated to identify and zoom in on the specific group who are interested in your product. Researched target groups formed on the basis of procedures like behavioral targeting help a business to eliminate the wastage of resources that takes place when advertisers try to attract the masses who might not be interested in the product in the first place thereby making the conversion rate of the audience into actual consumers very low.



Processes like behavioral marketing and behavioral targeting have made the task of finding the relevant target group a much easier process. Behavioral Marketing is the next evolution in Internet marketing. Behavioral Marketing works by placing a pixel on a website and using cookies to follow and target internet users and provide them with more relevant browsing experience. Behavioral targeting is the latest online tool that is being used to relevant target audience with the right communication message thereby increasing brand awareness and the return on investment performance. Behavioral Targeting lets advertisers serve up more relevant advertisements to the web surfers, which has the power to increase conversion rates for advertisers. This is where the real power lies.

Attributes that behavioral targeting tracks are:

• Sections visited and number of page views

• Topics and articles read

• Searches Made

• Demographic Information

• IP address indicating

o Geographic location

o Domain

o Industry tracking codes

o The information is not personally identifiable to your name

A few relevant terms of behavioral targeting are:

• Demographic Targeting which allows marketers to focus online advertisements for subscribers with their desired demographics (i.e. profession, industry, gender, income, etc)

• Topic Targeting which consists of advertisements served to individuals based on the specific topics that are researched on the site.

Tracking is vital to proper behavioral targeting. The ability to target internet users and collect information about where they spend their time is of great value to the advertisers. Learning their behavior by tracking the text read and the segments they visit on major portals is the key to determining their interests. Behavioral targeting allows an online business to understand the needs and interests of their target consumers. The knowledge of the target consumer's interest and needs enable the online business to map back these requirements and integrate them in their product offering on the websites. The consumers are pleased with the experience of visiting that particular website that provides for all their needs.

When behavioral targeting is applied to the different stages of consumer buying process online which involve recognizing a need, searching for information, evaluation and comparison between the various products available and finally the purchase decision – a strategy evolves for each stage. Hence we find that behavioral targeting can have multi dimensional benefits if strategically applied by every online business.