Will Yahoo’s Behavioural Targeting change ad dynamics in India?
Posted on January 22, 2008
Filed Under E-Marketing & E-PR |
Advertisers in India seem to be a harried lot. Even as they get bigger budgets to spend on digital media, there is little to guide them on where and when to spend their money. The options all seem to come around to a handful of websites, with little market intelligence on how to get a bigger bang for their buck.
In such a scenario, will Yahoo’s Behavioural Targeting (BT) offering, now available in India, change things? Will it mean advertisers signing cheques assured of better performance of their ads, and Yahoo’s smile getting bigger all the way to the bank?
What is BT and how does it work? It seems like a smart formula for marketers to catch consumers at the right place at a time when they are most likely to make a purchase decision or be receptive to a message. And it could be the next big thing for India said
Prashanth Mehta, who heads Emerging Markets for Yahoo! Inc, when I interacted with him during his visit to New Delhi recently.
Yahoo achieves this by monitoring a number of user actions such as search items entered, content consumed, ads or banners clicked on and micro sites visited. All this information is then compiled and analysed over a period of time. As an example, someone browsing auto sites for a longish period also clicks on those related to finance could be one with a higher propensity to make a purchase soon. If the user were to just browse pages on cars, it could imply he is doing so for other reasons.
According to Prashanth, BT works particularly well for sectors like finance, retail, technology, travel and entertainment besides others. Being highly contextual and relevant in its scope, it also means marketers can reach out more effectively to even the smaller B and C category towns. Of course, this would come at a premium over traditional digital ads – and this could vary across a wide range depending on the category. But Prashanth claims click-through rates have seen a rise of 20-120 percent in countries where they have already launched BT justifying any premium to be paid.
In my opinion, mass medium is something that is relevant and affordable to only a finite set of advertisers in India. For the majority, it is either no advertising or only the focused type. BT is something that could work for them; remember, an ad on the homepage on Rediff or Indiatimes cannot be guaranteed to reach out to enough of the targeted audience.
Of course, Yahoo will have to decipher the mind of the Indian consumer well. Don’t think his behaviour can be very predictable.
Comments
3 Responses to “Will Yahoo’s Behavioural Targeting change ad dynamics in India?”
Leave a Reply
Hey Ajay,
Nice one mate!
Tks
Raghu
Thanks Raghu…glad you liked it…keep me posted about future developments.
are you making any announcements at GSMA Barcelona? Maybe you can send some embargoed stuff in advance to be posted at the same time as you announce it.
Behaviroul Targeting chosen by Yahoo may be successful but I am not sure people’s clicks will always remain the same i.e. the behaviour or the mindset of a person sitting in front of a computer and browsing internet will hardly be the same until and unless the person is a professional in a particular feild and is not interested in knowing anything else. So, I feel the target audience of Yahoo BT will be very less.