Comments on: Behavioral Targeting – What Recruitment Advertisers Should Know

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:21:00 +0000

So, for a good recruiter, we have to make effort to know more new ways to recruit and know more about the industries which we are dealing with.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:10:15 +0000

Hi William,

BT does require you make assumptions. With recruiting, most people just choose the behavior similar to “exhibits job searching behavior”, which by definition is targeting active candidates. The confusion becomes that with BT you cna reach that person when they are not in the process of “job search”, which many people will argue is a passive candidate. But I’d say it’s not, just becasue they are looking at that moment, doesn’t mean they aren’t actively looking.

It is apparent that Careerbuilder and Monster use BT extensively in the online marketing. Most people in this industry exhibit what is defined as “job search behavior” while doing their jobs (job board research, posting jobs, searching resumes, etc). Therefore, most of us see Monster and Careerbuilder ads all the time, regardless of where we go on the web. This is usually BT in action.

However, the best use of BT I’ve seen is in the consumer world. I’m a Pats fan. I recently researched and purchased a Pats T-shirt online. Now, FansEdge.com serves me banners where ever I go online that feature Pats gear in them. So their program knows exactly what I’m looking for and is showing it to me. They aren’t showing just a random banner, their creative is specifically targeted to my behavior. That is where BT proves a high ROI and becomes indispensible. Now, the level of detail makes me suspect that the BT is based on what I have done on their sites as opposed to what I’ve done on the web in general.

But this type of site-behavior targeting would be useful to many employers. You can basically re-target those that have been to your site and performed certain actions (i.e. visited the Diversity or benefits sections, searched for specific types of jobs, etc) and then serve them targeted creative.

By: William

William — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:23:54 +0000

So BT also presumes that you know what you’re going after before you have the need (pipeline building). The strategy seems to be how to insert yourself into “the mix” as the passive (candidates) go about their daily business. This seems to require that you know where the passive go (based on their behavioral tendencies) and what will insert your brand into their mind (creative).

If I’m not too off-base here… who has done/is doing this well (on both sides of the equation: creative and BT?)

Thanks,

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 04:25:25 +0000

Probably not. We can run multiple creative within a single behaviorally targeted (BT) campaign if we want to test creative concepts. An advertiser can run two campaigns, for instance, both targeting Nurses in New York, and layer behavioral targeting on one and compare. However, its not an apples to apples comparison. The BT campaign will have higher click-through in most cases. But the non-BT campaign might reach more nurses that couldn’t be reached via a job board or traditional sourcing tools.

Another issue with BT campaigns is that if the media vendor’s inventory is limited, you can significantly reduce the reach of the campaign and you may end up serving ads over and over to the same people. We sometimes see BT campaigns with lower unique impressions. That might not be bad thing for the campaign, but it is a consideration.

By: Russ

Russ — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 04:11:16 +0000

I wonder if one might achieve success by launching TWO behavioral campaigns – one with the creative necessary to reach the job seekers, and another for those who aren’t. Could be an interesting thing to track.