The Wall Street Journal Online introduces an advertising technology today called Interest-Based Targeting that lets advertisers reach site visitors based on their interests as they move through WSJ.com.
Interest-Based Targeting will begin across all of WSJ.com's online properties including the Media & Marketing Edition, the Health Edition, Barron's Online, CareerJournal, CollegeJournal, OpinionJournal, RealEstateJournal, StartupJournal and Personal Technology.
The technology will let advertisers target subscribers based on site activities, such as regular visits to content such as travel, automotive, investments, health and leisure. Visitors to various parts of the Journal Online will be placed in one of eight categories: car buffs, consumer techies, engaged investors, health enthusiasts, leisure-minded, mutual-fund aficionados, opinion leaders and travel seekers, as well as a custom category designed at a marketer's request.
Interest-Based Targeting is powered by the Switched-On Audience Select revenue maximization service from Bellevue, WA-based Revenue Science Inc., formerly digiMine. It complements existing targeting technologies such as demographic and contextual targeting.
The interest-based model combines standard Interactive Advertising Bureau formats with data analysis and customer intelligence technology to create an optimum brand-building environment. For instance, if an advertiser wants to target technology enthusiasts, this scenario can occur:
· A visitor who visits the technology section of The Wall Street Journal Online five times a week is defined as a technology enthusiast and automatically added to a “technology enthusiast” targeting segment.
· Advertisers can show relevant ad impressions to this target audience not only on the Technology section, but also in other areas of the site visited by the technology enthusiast.
· As a result, the target audience is exposed to the message sequentially over a predetermined period of time.
“We pioneered demographic targeting in the 1990s, but by allowing advertisers to target audiences based on viewers' interests and behavior, we add an exciting new dimension of opportunities,” said Randy Kilgore, Journal Online's vice president of advertising. “While this will work well for many advertisers, we believe consumer-oriented advertising like auto, travel and electronics will see especially great benefits.”
Deployment takes four to six weeks for new Revenue Science customers. Revenue Science looks at historical data for the past three months to do initial segmentation of the audiences and then tracks and updates the segments in real time.
