MSN Search Ads To Include Behavioral Targeting
By Andrew Goodman
Expert Author
Article Date: 2005-03-16
MSN Search will reportedly fold behavioral targeting into the mix of its new sponsored listings program, based on personal information provided by, for example, users of Hotmail.
Because this is a slippery slope with no clear demarcation between the evil side and the good side (after all, the information is kept "confidential," right?) I suspect that Yahoo and Google will soon follow suit in some way. They didn't collect all that personalized information for nothing.
The Ad:Tech crowd will be thrilled.
Not taking the opportunity to do this type of thing, though -- looking at an opportunity and rejecting it out of concern for the user's privacy -- would offer Google a great way of further distinguishing themselves from Microsoft. If they were smart, they'd sit tight on this trend.
Related: Microsoft to Launch Paid Search Technology
About the Author:
Andrew Goodman is Principal of Page Zero Media, a marketing consultancy which focuses on maximizing clients' paid search marketing campaigns.
In 1999 Andrew co-founded Traffick.com, an acclaimed "guide to portals" which foresaw the rise of trends such as paid search and semantic analysis.
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