My name is Heather Rutkowski and I believe that Behavioral Targeting should be a key ingredient in the marketing plan of every DR focused advertiser. If you think I’m crazy, I would encourage you to read this blog post.

At Microsoft Advertising, we have one of the best Behavioral Targeting platforms available. We see it as a comprehensive solution for marketers, whether they are looking to reach users at the top or bottom of the purchase funnel. While we believe that it is one of the strongest branding tools for advertisers, for the purposes of this blog, I will be focusing on how BT can drive direct response and consumer action.

The secret behind our market-leading BT solutions is our diverse audience powered and authenticated by the Windows Live ID not to mention data from Bing searches. Those millions of people also happen to buy a lot of expensive goods. In fact, Bing users have the highest buying power index (BPI), as compared to Yahoo, AOL and Google. (Source: comScore, December 2011.)Even better, we expect this audience to grow in the future.

Artdeco imageYou may be thinking: “does BT really perform as well as Remessaging?” Or, “wouldn’t a CPA campaign be the most low risk option?” And my favorite quote from “DR” marketers- “I only want to run something that is going to perform and hit my ROI. I would prefer to stick with Remessaging and a standard CPA campaign.”So in other words, you are totally ok with losing a majority of your highly qualified audience to your competition?

Let’s take a closer look….

There is no denying that Remessaging does a great job of converting “shoppers” into “buyers.” But what about all of those other qualified consumers that might not even be aware of an advertiser’s product or service and are shopping elsewhere? I like to think of Remessaging as the fancy mannequin in a department store. Having browsed the latest fashion magazines and seen the looks that are on trend and would suit my personal style, on entering the store, this fancy plastic lady reminds me that the “Art Deco” look that I loved in Vogue is totally IN right now. The mannequin is the department store’s Remessaging ad to me, driving me to purchase the latest trend. But what about every other woman in my demographic that is shopping at the department store across the street - or on the other side of the country and doesn’t have the opportunity to see this fancy mannequin because they are not physically INSIDE of this department store?

fashionbillboardWhat if, when all of those women are outside on the street, they saw digital billboards across the country that showed them the trends and clothes that not only map to the designer brands’ objectives, but also align to the type of person that they are, even if they haven’t heard of the designer before? Personalized for better relevance, scaled to reach a broader audience. A far-fetched example, but that is the type of impact BT can have on an interested audience.

Another favorite quote of mine from DR advertisers is: “I don’t want to pay on a CPM for BT, so I will just run a CPA campaign and get the same users that way at no risk.”Let me break this down. It is true that CPA campaigns will always be a low risk for an advertiser- since the advertiser is only paying for conversions; however, the actual impressions that qualify for a CPA campaign are often not the most valuable. Instead, the most qualified cookies are the people that spend the most time and money online and have attractive demographic characteristics for advertisers. These people are most likely already in a number of Remessaging and BT segments. Because of frequency caps, this highly desirable audience will probably never qualify to see many impressions from CPA campaigns. Running a CPA campaign is like getting a free gift with purchase- most people are not ever going to say no to this free gift- but the quality of the gift is often questionable.

Behavioral Targeting is a great way to connect with shoppers that have never even heard of an advertiser’s brand. Microsoft’s BT solution is quickly setting itself apart from the competition, especially as our data footprint grows. Even the most DR focused advertiser should have an overwhelming reason to test BT on the Microsoft Network. If DR metrics are still getting in the way of an advertiser testing BT, an advertiser is essentially giving away customers to the competition.

Heather Rutkowski – Microsoft Advertising