Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Backlash Expected for Behavioral Marketing

Most analyst firms have painted a rosy picture for online advertising. It is refreshing for Deloitte to caution ad firms because of an expected backlash to behavioral advertising that could slow growth.

The consulting firm published a report on global trends for the year, including an expected slowing of the growth in advertising. Consumers will have antipathy towards being tracked wherever they go and having their transactions and browsing made public through Facebook's Beacon and similar programs.

Behavioral marketing is a bad thing only when it goes too far and doesn't offer anything to the consumer in exchange for the priviledge of tracking their activities. It must be opt-in so users aren't surprised, and there must be some additional free content that makes being tracked worthwhile. More controls need to be put on behavioral marketing activities, but the enthusiasm for the technology shouldn't be dampened simply because a few early implementations were executed poorly.

Posted By John Gartner at 09:33 AM
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