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Online Ad Targeting: Doomed and Not to Be Mourned
By dave_pasternack | March 21, 2008
As reported in the New York Times, New York assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky has introduced a bill to outlaw certain online ad targeting practices, including the sharing of data between 3rd parties, without affirmative consent from the targeted users.
After the Times story ran, Brodsky’s phone began ringing continuously, as panicky online marketers began calling (presumably from the offices of Google, Yahoo, Tacoda, Right Media and others who’ve bet the farm on targeting). If the bill goes through (and I bet it will), the value of many of these companies will be vastly reduced, along with plenty of other players in the BT and ad network business.
Brodsky should be saluted for taking aim at an industry whose tracking activities have too much potential harm to the public to be addressed by self-regulation. We’ve seen what can happen when data-mining companies sell their data or leak it. We also know full well that the entire online industry is filled with shady characters who will only be deterred by a strong law that’s vigorously enforced.
Should the world mourn the death of online targeting, BT, and all the other shady data-mining crap? No way. Targeting and data mining have for too long been regarded as a panacea that can singlehandedly save display advertising. Nobody even knows whether they really work (after all, targeting past user behavior is a very poor indicator of future behavior. Why would I want to target visitors to a camera site with camera ads if my target has already bought a camera?)
In the past 12 years, the Online Advertising Complex has tried virtually every trick in the book to make display advertising work. None of it has, and the value of display advertising continues to drop. The only thing that’s worked is search, and search only works because users self-disclose their intent when they make a query. This is a fundamentally different process with a much lower potential for abuse.
Targeting, data-mining, data-commingling, and other shady tactics are being unmasked, and it’s very clear that the industry (including the IAB, which senselessly opposes Brodsky’s law) has been caught with its pants down. The industry response has been pathetic and the self-regulation advocates are being exposed as self-interested and narrow-minded. This industry has long needed a shake-up and it’s now upon us. Let’s quit the whining, stop the spying, and focus on creating compelling advertising that works.
Topics: Shady Marketing Tactics |
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