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MSN PPC Advertising Behavioral and Demographic Targeting: Killer App. or
Achilles' Heel?
by
Joel Walsh
Privacy advocates, bloggers, and many people's own low tolerance level for
creepiness may damage not just the advertising program but MSN itself.
MSN PPC Advertising Demographic & Behavioral Targeting Features Overview
The
coolest thing about the new MSN PPC advertising network is that it will
incorporate demographic information and "behavioral targeting"--at least that's
what many bloggers in the marketing field seem to think. MSN will be the only
search engine advertising program that lets advertisers know roughly what
proportion of users who search on a particular keyword are interested in certain
market segments, as well as those searchers' demographic breakdown. For
instance, MSN might tell you that most of the searchers on the keyword "monster
truck rally" appear to be women aged 50-65, and that they also generally appear
to be interested in auto racing and auto parts, but are not more likely than
other searchers to buy an automobile online.
How will MSN know so much about searchers? Ah, that's the interesting part...
MSN has quietly been assembling and sorting this information for years in
preparation for this venture. That is, it uses cookies to track individual
users' web browsing at the MSN portal--just as every other business website
does. Presumably it will also connect the data with information from user
profiles from MSN's .NET passport and Hotmail, in order to determine searchers'
demographic information such as sex and occupation.
Potential resistance to MSN's demographic and behavioral marketing
Now, if you use the MSN Search, and you also have a .NET passport and/or Hotmail
account (as you probably do, even if you've forgotten ever signing up for it
back in 1998 when you wanted a free email address to sign up to read the New
York Times online), all your searches may be matched up with your user
information from your .NET passport or Hotmail account--and will be, even if the
information is kept separate from your personally identifying information.
If you actually were honest on your application to those services, that
information may include your address, average annual income, personal interests,
and a lot of other juicy bits of information any self-respecting marketer or
voyeur would love to have. Even if you weren't honest, at the very least it
might include the addresses of the people you have exchanged emails with, your
IM buddies, and just which newsletters you've signed up for and whice you're
sending to the junk email folder.
Future implications for search engine advertising
Of course, Microsoft Corporation has such a sterling reputation in the internet
community and the world at large that it will undoubtedly be trusted implicitly
with such a wealth of information on every user. And most people have absolutely
no reason to care if their online activity were associated with their real
identities, anyway.
True, it is widely believed that almost a quarter of all web page views and a
comparable proportion of search engine searches involve naughtynaughty pictures.
But surely that's the work of a small army of trench-coat-wearing filth addicts
who spend all day doing nothing but feed their habit, and on multiple computers
simultaneously. Certainly not you, any of your family members, or that guy in
the shipping department who wears a WWJD T-shirt to work everyday and is always
trying to convince anyone in earshot that dinosaurs and the radioactive dating
of their fossils are yet another figment of the degenerate left-wing
imagination.
So naturally, Microsoft has nothing to worry about. Privacy advocates, bloggers,
message boards and chat rooms around the internet won't be on fire with warnings
not to use MSN search unless you want a permanent record of your doings attached
to that Hotmail account you deleted but that may not have really been deleted.
And no prosecutor will make headlines by trying to introduce a defendant's MSN
online activity history as evidence into court.
And so it naturally follows that we can all forget about Overture and Google
Adwords since there's a new kid on the block who's so much cooler.
Previous page:
Background of new MSN PPC Advertising Network
If you're interested in reading further, one of the most extensive discussions
of MSN's new advertising program is the
marketing blog of Charlene Li at the Forrester corporation. That blog is
representative of the rose-colored-glasses view held by the big corporate
marketing world.
Microsoft's press release announcing the new MSN advertising program is also
worth reading if you're that into this.
About the author
Joel Walsh is the head writer at
UpMarket, internet
marketing services, online copywriting services, & website content provider
focusing on small and medium-sized businesses and those who serve them. |
