Tanner McElreath
Abstract
This essay focuses on different types of target marketing and how effective they can be when
used correctly, but also how these strategies affect the people they are used on. The two
strategies focused on are online target marketing and behavioral target marketing. The two types
of target marketing are broken down on how they have developed and evaluated based on their
consumers so that they will purchase their products and services. There are different tactics when
it comes to approaching a new or returning consumer. Online and behavioral target marketing
are two popular strategies to more personal advertisements that are specific to certain consumers.
Traditional online target marketing is when companies use consumers online information
including account logins, cookies, smart cards, credit cards, etc. to create a user specific profile
so that ads are based on whoever is using that computer or account (“Biometric Marketing:
Targeting the Online Consumer”, 2006). Behavioral target marketing is more personal and
considers people’s “web browsing data, search histories, media consumption data, purchases,
click-through responses to ads, and communication content (p.364)” which includes emails and
social media posts (Boerman, Kruikemeier, & Borgesius, 2017). Each of these strategies has
benefits that can lead to higher profits and lower volatility of the market, but some consumers
feel as though these strategies are an invasion of privacy and this worries them. There should be
a way to utilize behavioral targeting and online targeting in a way where people are more aware
Online target marketing has evolved as new technology has been created. Before the
internet, advertising personalization was more limited than today because information was
collected in person which makes habits harder to track constantly. The internet allows for greater
personalization because of the monitoring of peoples’ online activity (Boerman et al, 2017).
Traditional online target marketing as described above uses online activity to create an online
profile of a person but lacks the technology to know who is actually online because people can ONLINE AND BEHAVIORAL TARGET MARKETING 4
use others online accounts (“Biometric Marketing: Targeting the Online Consumer”, 2006).
Online target marketing has adapted new biometric technology to increase accuracy of
used to identify the individual precisely. A fingerprint, a signature, an iris pattern [6]—
Before biometric technology, traditional online marketing was less accurate because it was hard
to identify who was actually viewing the content (“Biometric Marketing: Targeting the Online
Consumer”, 2006).
Behavioral target marketing has become more successful with the increase of online
shopping and online presence in general. Online presence is becoming essential for businesses
who haven’t really utilized the internet in the past (Gupta, Miller, & Darda, 2016). An example
of this is with modern health care and how a web presence can create a very positive result
including a wider customer base and allow people to become better connected with their local
area but can also have a negative effect because of reviews of unsatisfied customers that have
If a potential patient searches for someone with a particular skill set and range of services
on Google or another search engine, a well-optimized website will stand out amongst
competitors. It will show a visitor that a particular business is in tune with the times and
is working hard to make the practice and reputation grow. (Gupta et al, after intro, 2016) ONLINE AND BEHAVIORAL TARGET MARKETING 5
Social media has also started to play a larger role with online presence that is more than just a
website. It is an easier way to reach out to specific people and connect with others (Gupta et al,
2016). The goals of current online behavioral targeting are to provide a more personalized
experience for consumers, track browser history, and to provide the appropriate level of
Targeting people online can lead to more profitability and a lower churn rate because of
how the non-targeted people tend to react (Ascarza, Ebbes, Netzer, & Danielson, 2017). Non-
targeting customers still tend to buy from Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
campaigns because by not being targeted, but connected to people who were targeted, the non-
targeted people don’t feel pressured to change their behavior (Ascarza et al, 2017). CRMs are
campaigns that focus on targeted customers. This shows how online target marketing effects
more than just the targeted audience which makes it an effective way to advertise. One way a
Social media has become more and more popular for many reasons. One reason is the
actual social aspect where people can connect with new people online. This has led to social
media being a popular place for advertisements because of the amount of information that can be
used to target people (Wirtz, Göttel, & Daiser, 2017). The more information a company can
obtain about a person allows them to create a more user specific profile which is important for
targeted advertisements. The Journal of Marketing Research states that targeting ads tend to be
effective, and that advertisements with animation tend to have more engagement that one’s
without (Ascarza et al, 2017). Social media is a popular place for this because animation is
digital, so posting this on someone’s feed or timeline wouldn’t be difficult. The Journal of ONLINE AND BEHAVIORAL TARGET MARKETING 6
Marketing Research also found that advertisements that appeal to emotion tends to be more
successful than ones that appeal to logic (Ascarza et al, 2017). Lastly, The Journal of Marketing
Research stated how incentives in advertisements tend to lead to more involvement than ads
without incentives (Ascarza et al, 2017). Targeted incentives could be products that are in
people’s recent purchase history. This are just some of the ways that Online target marketing can
Behavioral target marketing is a more personal approach than typical online target
marketing because it is based on recent searches and preferences rather than just information
Advertisers are increasingly monitoring people’s online behavior and using the
phenomenon is called online behavioral advertising (OBA). (Boerman et al, p.363, 2017)
Analyzing people’s online behavior can be a contributing factor to more consistency which can
lead to lower volatility or change in products (Shah, Kumar, Kihyun, & Choi, 2017). Lower
volatility can lead to higher future cash flow or at least more predictable numbers (Shah et al,
2017). This can make behavioral target marketing effective if the proper aspects of a consumers’
online behavior are analyzed. There is usually a focus on if a consumer buys the same items
regularly, promotional items, clearance items, or frequently returns purchased items (Shah et al,
2017). Targeted advertisements are also analyzed to see if specific groups of people are being
targeted based off their race, gender, values, personality, or lifestyle (Summers, Smith, & Walker
Reczek, 2016). ONLINE AND BEHAVIORAL TARGET MARKETING 7
By having the habitual information of different groups of people companies can collect
more data to see which groups respond positively/negatively to certain advertisements (Summers
et al, 2016). The Journal of Consumer Research found that advertisements based on implied
social labels can cause repeat actions or even change consumers to fit into one of the social
labels (Summers et al, 2016). Examples of a specific group of people having a pattern is older
people tending to develop buying habitats and homemakers tending to be less habitual and buy
with more variety say the Journal of Marketing Research (Ascarza et al, 2017). Although this
information can be effective when creating personalized advertisements based on the online
behavior of people, there are also issues with such personalized advertising.
As more personalized information is being able to be collected, people are worrying more
about their privacy being invaded. An example given in an article from The Journal of Electronic
Commerce Research (Wirtz et al, 2017) is Facebook which shows just how important data
privacy is and if people’s information is incorrectly then there can be major repercussions. This
has caused social media platforms to promote data privacy more so that people will continue to
trust them and so that the platform popularity with continue to grow (Wirtz et al, 2017). This is
one reason why having mass amounts of personal information about people is necessarily the
most effective or ethical way to create personalized advertisements (Wirtz et al, 2017).
isn’t always the best thing because it can be abused (“Biometric Marketing: Targeting the Online
In fact, unethical or unwanted marketing campaigns are something that most modern
consumers will have targeted at them at some point in their lives. (“Biometric Marketing:
Part of privacy is based on what people personally believe is an invasion of their privacy, which
makes online and behavioral targeted marketing ineffective or unethical sometimes. The Journal
Advertising even found that older people tend to oppose ‘online behavioral advertising
(OBA)’more, but younger people want OBA less than older people, which shows how older
people tend to be more proactive about fighting OBA (Boerman et al, 2017).
Conclusion
In summation online and behavioral target marketing can be effective if used correctly
without invading peoples’ privacy, but if used incorrectly can lead to ethical issues. That creates
a balance of effectiveness and ethicality. The more information that is gathered tends to be more
effective for targeted advertisements, but the more information that is gathered the more likely
consumers are to have issues with the way companies advertise. A potential solution to this issue
would be for companies to have more clear privacy policies when consumers are using their
websites or products. If people agree to what companies put in their privacy policies, then that
would at least solve some of the legal issues that lead to scandals. ONLINE AND BEHAVIORAL TARGET MARKETING 9
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