Most media reps that work with me know that I am not too high on behavioral targeting (BT). This is because BT has evolved at a macro level with broad categories. Many networks allow you to target career-related behavior (which generally boils down to visiting career sites and doing career related searches). However, most media plans I work on are to attract passive candidates, and adding a layer of BT for career-related behavior, just hits an active audience. Sometimes BT can be added to a media buy to get your ad in front of more diverse (i.e. African-American interest, Hispanic Interest), or more relevant (outdoor interest, sports interest) candidate, but it’s usually only marginally effective. I have always preferred occupational and industry demographic targeting.
However, a new targeting option is just around the corner that I think will have much more relevance for recruitment advertising and make BT a better option. Seethroo, a new audience measurement and behavioral targeting company, in an interview with iMediaConnection, described a new targeted technology based on web 2.0 or social media behaviors. Their system will analyze social bookmarks, to determine patterns and develop a targeted profile.
Jason Frankovitch. Seethroo’s CEO describes the system:
Seethroo’s approach to BT is focused exclusively on the Web 2.0 arena. Specifically, Seethroo examines the content that individual users contribute to social websites and analyzes it to determine a profile for each person. In other words, we use Web 2.0 activity to learn what each person likes, how much they like it, and when that interest is strongest. Then we use that data to serve an ad that’s the absolute best fit for that person’s behavior.
Seethroo is specifically tracking bookmark activity. We’ve built a bookmark-based behavioral analysis system (our patent is pending) that examines people’s bookmarks, publicly stored on social bookmark sites, to accurately identify topics that are directly relevant to each person. Based on those topics, Seethroo targets an ad that’s a good fit for that person. This all happens in real-time.
Since most people bookmark work-related information, there should be some very interesting opportunities for targeting on an occupational interest level. I think this is definitely something to keep an eye on. Seethroo is not an ad network itself, they simply provide the technology to ad networks and portals. I’m hoping that the sites that I work with are looking into partnering with them, because I see a lot of potential for being able to get recruitment ads in front of more relevant candidates.
March 22, 2007 at 10:38 am
Gad Zukes. This is huge.
I’m currently working on a team developing web 2.0 community software at Microsoft, which includes social bookmarking, and I can only begin to imagine the amount of data that would be required to make this as effective as the potential sounds. I also think it’s great that they’re able to make this happen without storing any PII.
Click throughs could really increase by an order of magnitude once people realize the ads on the page actually have something useful to offer them.
March 22, 2007 at 11:19 am
I think it will be big. And for the recruitment industry, where it is hard to find good targeting along occupation/industry lines, it could really provide some very good opportunities.
April 23, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Laura…this is in keeping with our discussion the other day. I totally get where you were coming from with regards to traditional BT we’ve seen so far. Thanks so much for being willing to share your expertise.
April 25, 2007 at 6:22 am
Thank You
June 3, 2007 at 11:17 am
[...] New Social Media Targeting May Be Very Useful For Recruiting Most media reps that work with me know that I am not too high on behavioral targeting (BT). This is because BT has evolved at a macro level with broad categories. Many networks allow you to target career-related behavior (which generally boils down to visiting career sites and doing career related searches). However, most […] [...]