How should Marketers address concerns about Ad Targeting?

The main unit of currency for online advertising is data. Players in today’s shifting ad landscape increasingly recognize that audience data fuels online advertising more than ad impressions alone, particular contexts or sites where the audience is found—or even various types of ad targeting that depend on the data.

But for marketers to make the most of that data requires an audience that understands the trade-off between better-targeted advertising and access to the ad-supported online content they have come to expect.

“Audience discomfort around marketers collecting data has led to calls for regulation, and some brands are staying on the sidelines of behavioral targeting because they fear consumer backlash,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Audience Ad Targeting: Data and Privacy Issues.” “Still, spending on behaviorally targeted ads is up, and if understanding between advertisers and consumers improves, outlays will only increase.”

eMarketer predicts online advertisers in the US will spend more than $1.1 billion on behaviorally targeted advertising in 2010, rising to $2.6 billion in 2014.

While some studies show consumers are willing to reveal their data for targeted ads, which they might be more willing to click on, others indicate Internet users are worried that advertisers have too much personal info. A survey from the Future of Privacy Forum backs up earlier research by the Annenberg School and Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at UC Berkeley, which found that consumers were hostile to behavior targeting.

But in many cases, that hostility may be a product of confusion.

“The Annenberg study indicates that the public is ill-informed about privacy,” said Mr. Hallerman. “When the online audience is so ignorant of current data protections, it is little wonder that they also misunderstand exactly what online ad targeting is, how it may not really be a threat and what benefits they derive from Websites supported by advertising.”

For more information at http://www.emarketer.com