David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

Behavioural advertising is a relatively new concept where some advertising networks track what you look at, displaying adverts relevant to what they think you are after based on what you have looked at. Here's a quick video explaining one company's solution:



The most common example is when I'm working on my travel deals or mini cruise websites. A visit to these then a website using behavioural advertising and I'm shown travel adverts, even on unrelated websites.

The logic used is that if I'm going to be shown adverts then I might as well be shown the most targeted adverts possible. By watching what I do online, adverts are tailored to the profile the ad agencies create about me. To me, this is irritating and it raises privacy concerns too. I'm also unsure of the profitability of such adverts.

There's quite a lot of information about behavioural advertising to follow so I'll split it into small groups.
 
Relevancy and Profitability

If you do enough volume then behavioural advertising could pay off. But for me, I seem to get a lot of travel adverts as I am falsely branded by the ad agencies as a travel mad person. I love travel but if I'm looking at a gadget website, I'm not interested in where Brittany Ferries sails to or how little BAA airport parking costs.

I'm a firm believer in content relevant advertising but not behavioural advertising. Advertising companies like Red Letter Days or Buyagift on an experience days website makes sense. I wouldn't dream of advertising an airline on that website as it's not relevant, hence my point about behavioural advertising.

Because I don't believe in the power of behavioural advertising I've turned it off on the networks I use that use it. I want relevant ads displayed on my website that relate to my website. I don't want something that an ad agency has pigeon-holed my visitor into.

Privacy

Everything I have read or watched about behavioural advertising really emphasises the point that no personally identifiable information is collected. All good and well, and as an affiliate marketer I can understand how that is so. Nevertheless, adverts that watch what I do, band me in a particular demographic and show what they deem to be relevant adverts depending on where I have visited is a little concerning, despite knowing that no personally identifiable information is collected.

Opting Out of Behavioural Advertising

It should be a simple task but alas it isn't. The reason being that there are dozens of agencies that specialise in behavioural advertising including Google.

The best place to start is at NAI. Here you can select 48 such ad agencies and opt out of behavioural advertising for all of them. These companies are aCerno, AdBrite, Adconion, Adify Media, Advertising.com, Aggregate Knowledge, Akamai, AlmondNet, AudienceScience, BlueKai, Burst Media's adConductor, Casale Media, Collective, Criteo, DataLogix, Dedicated Networks, Dotomi, eXelate Media, FetchBack, Fox Audience Network, Google, interCLICK, Lotame, MediaMath, Mediaplex, Media6degrees, Microsoft (Atlas Technology), Microsoft Advertising, Mindset Media, Netmining, Opinmind, Permuto, Quantcast, richrelevance, Safecount, SpecificMEDIA, Traffic Marketplace, Tumri, Turn, 24/7 Real Media, Undertone Networks, ValueClick Media, Vibrant Media, [x+1] (formerly Poindexter Systems), Yahoo! Ad Network, YuMe, Inc., TACODA Audience Networks and Tribal Fusion.

That's a start (and the most simplest) to opt out of the bulk of behavioural advertising. Your Online Choices also recommends visiting the following:

Blinx, Crimtan, AOL, Adconion, Live.com and Yahoo!. A quick Google search also led me to Tradedoubler and Doubleclick which you can also opt out of.

UPDATE: Also found MyThings and Struq.

This is by no means an extensive list but is a good start. Unfortunately there's nothing (I've found) that offers the same as NAI but for the entire industry. A master opt-out cookie if you will. Nevertheless, this selection will certainly help reduce the vast majority of behavioural advertising you see.

Your Views

I'm interested to know your thoughts on behavioural advertising. Is it an unnecessary evil or does it actually work better than regular advertising? Should it be opt-out or opt-in? Does it raise privacy concerns for you or do you think the fact that no personally identifiable information is collected is fine? Comment below and let me know.

Also feel free to comment with links to other behavioural advertising website opt-out pages as I'm sure there are many I have missed in this list!