Monday, April 24, 2006

Behavioral Targeting Gets Hot

Behavioral targeting, the use of web site clickstream information to target advertising and other information, is getting hot, as several providers of web analytics and web advertising announced this morning that they have launched behavioral targeting solutions. Westlake Village-based ValueClick and San Diego-based WebSideStory both announced behavioral targeting functionality today. ValueClick Media said that it is now providing user retargeting functions across its network, using behavior of consumers to customize targeting of advertisement to users. For example, when a user visits a site in the firm's network, that advertiser can present a specific ad the next time a user visits any of ValueClick's ad network. WebSideStory launched a site search tool, Search 4.0, which uses behavioral data to rank results according to what pages the user has visited on the site, the number of visits, and other visitor metrics, presenting results in a different order based on prior behavior.

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