Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Behavioral Marketing Needs E-mail Integration
AOL's purchase of Tacoda for $275 million has put behavioral marketing back into the headlines, but what the marketing tactic needs to become a seismic shift is to integrate e-mail into its tracking capabilities.AOL should combine its strength in content and captive audience to develop a system that rewards users with free content for allowing their behaviors to be tracked and for opting into an e-mail list that learns from their travels.
Behavioral marketing is the best way to find out what people want, but users often don't want to derail their mission by stopping to read ads when they are doing a product search. People are much more likely to consider a relevant offer in their inbox later rather than interrupting their browsing. For example, an e-mail pitch could be tailored to people who put items into a shopping cart but didn't complete a purchase.
Using e-mail enables marketers to track behaviors from an entire web browsing session and determine the best products that can be e-mailed as special offers. AOL's broad network of sites is a great fit for behavioral marketing, and the company could give access to prime content via e-mail as a reward for being tracked. As long as it's opt-in, consumers won't get upset about their privacy.
Posted By John Gartner at 09:30 AM
Permanent Link: Behavioral Marketing Needs E-mail Integration
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