The Lunch Pail

While everyone and their brother is gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I'd like to take a quick detour and share a recent development in the behavioral targeting world. Conversions may be at a premium this holiday season, and behavioral targeting technologies enable many legitimate, helpful online marketing strategies that boost sales by providing consumers with information on products and services they actually have an interest in.

This update again revolves around network behavioral targeting technology and the increasingly infamous NebuAd. The issues have long been chronicled and I won’t rehash them. What is now relevant is how this specific case could have an impact on behavioral targeting as a whole.

While Congress is busy conducting a seemingly half-hearted session dominated by economic issues, BT debate has taken a backseat in D.C. However, there is still activity.

A class action lawsuit filed in the aftermath of Nebuad’s decision to disavow network level behavioral targeting is concentrating their fight on seeking an explicit opt-in to have select information captured for marketing use. This is good news. Why? The lawsuit isn’t focused on shutting down the industry, destroying the technology or attacking growing companies. It’s actually designed to mandate an opt-in – not a bad thing at all.

If an opt-in mandate happens, it’s up to the network level companies to sell consumers on opting in. After all, isn’t targeting technology supposed to personalize the shopping experience and make it easier and quicker for a customer to navigate to a product they want, or receive a compelling offer? Yes! It’s important for expend a little PR capital to “sell” their consumers on the possible improvement to their shopping experience.

The mandatory opt-in could trickle down to onsite targeting technologies in the future. Though, network and onsite targeting are quite different, an opt-in at the onsite level is a possibility. That’s why winning the PR battle now is so important.

Whether you’re thinking about adding behavioral targeting technology to your online marketing arsenal this holiday season or after the holidays, it’s important to invest wisely in technology that is built for the long-haul. While the merits of BT at the network level continue to be discussed up on the Hill and through class-action lawsuits from privacy and consumer-advocacy groups, onsite level targeting remains safe. There’s nothing dangerous about a shop keeper knowing your favorite product. Demonstrating better understanding of the customer is the next level of effective online marketing, and onsite BT plays a vital role enhancing the online consumer shopping experience. Thus far, the lawmakers appear to understand that fact.