MarketWatch.com is the latest online publisher to offer advertisers audience targeting.
The financial news and information provider signed a deal Tuesday with Revenue Science, Bellevue, WA, to use its Switched-On Audience Select behavioral-targeting service to offer advertisers audience segments on its CBS MarketWatch Web site.
Revenue Science analyzes user behavior and combines it with Internet address information to determine audience demographics and develop ad packages to reach them. This lets MarketWatch.com sell advertisers audience segments no matter where they are on the site.
Scot McLernon, executive vice president of sales and marketing at MarketWatch.com, said the first audience segments offered would be personal finance, financial services and employees of Fortune 500 companies.
“By being able to target businesses, we then become, if not the largest, then one of the biggest business-to-business publications” on the Internet, he said.
The site joins an increasing number of online publishers offering targeting capabilities to advertisers, some with their own systems and others with outside providers like Revenue Science or Tacoda Systems. The New York Times Digital, Wall Street Journal Online and USAToday.com have begun targeting users based on their behavior.
Unlike those sites, MarketWatch.com does not ask users for personal information through site registration.
Omar Tawkol, senior vice president of product marketing at Revenue Science, said the success of paid search has proven how effective targeting can be.
“We're just extending the model deeper into the funnel,” he said.
Audience targeting lets publishers use their ad inventory better. For example, a popular category like travel can be extended to other sections of a Web site with less advertiser demand.
MarketWatch.com claimed it is the first site to combine behavioral targeting with workplace information. It said it would start selling new ad packages based on the service later this quarter.
