ISBA to work with IAB on understanding behavioural targeting
24 Feb 2010
Behavioural targeting – or personalising the ads people see online – will be at the top of the agenda for ISBA’s Digital Action Group this year.
Under the stewardship of the group’s chair, the Post Office’s Alex Tait, ISBA will forge closer links with the Internet Advertising Bureau’s Behavioural Targeting Council, with Alex attending the Council’s meetings.
ISBA’s determination to understand and influence the realm of behavioural targeting comes at the same time as a threat to the commonly practiced advertising technique from EU regulators emerges.
“ISBA continues to support the IAB in helping with best practice within behavioural targeting and ensuring the Government doesn’t intervene,” Alex says. “We’re working together to develop consensus and the industry’s response to the EU directive.”
The Digital Action Group previously worked closely with the IAB over its good-practice principles for behavioural targeting in March 2009.
Audience measurement will be another key objective for ISBA’s digital advertisers, with plans to support online planning currency company UKOM, which the action group helped develop.
Alex goes on to say: “We want to work to remove any obstacles for agencies investing in the data. And we want to encourage advertisers, with the help of our media agencies, to assess quality of data and apply its output in media planning and ad activity for 2010.”
The Digital Action Group is keen to monitor and implement emerging technology, such as mobile and social media. “We intend to share knowledge of this among advertisers,” Alex continues. “We did a survey of the trends they think are important, and are using that as a basis to get suppliers in. We’ll also do more case studies, for example on how social media can meet business objectives, and derive meaning from that.”
Other issues it plans to investigate include the scale of opportunities around mobile and the effect of online on other channels.
