Target online Ads

Acxiom Corp. knows a lot about you. It has scoured public records for how many cars you own and what your house is worth. It has accumulated surveys that show if you are married and how many children you have. Target online Ads

And for years Acxiom sold that information to marketers eager to use it to send mailings and make telephone pitches to consumers most likely to buy. Now, the Little Rock, Ark., company is putting those hundreds of millions of bits of data in the service of customizing which display ads to show people browsing the Web—a development that has raised red flags with some privacy advocates.

Acxiom’s latest effort, announced yesterday, is one of the most aggressive in a broad push by Internet and online-ad companies to target display ads to specific groups of users. Target online Ads

Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are among the Internet companies that engage in so-called behavioral targeting, using information such as users’ Web search habits and the pages they visit to pick which ads to show them when they visit their own or partner Web sites. Time Warner Inc.’s AOL unit recently bought behavioral targeting firm Tacoda Inc. Target online Ads and is planning to include more targeting technology in its online-ad offerings, which includes the network Advertising.com that sells ads on thousands of Web sites.

Behavioral targeting allows a Web publisher, for example, to charge premium rates for a luxury-car ad even on a lightly visited site about needlepoint, if the user’s previous Web activity shows an interest in buying an automobile.

In the U.S. this year, advertisers will spend $575 million on these behaviorally Target online Ads, rising to a projected $3.8 billion in 2011, according to research firm eMarketer Inc.

Acxiom—which recently had private-equity buyers break off a proposed $2.25 billion deal for the company—has been building up its online-ad business, including the September acquisition of behavioral-targeting firm EchoTarget Inc.

“The way targeting happens in the online world today isn’t all that sophisticated,” says Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Rich Howe.

Acxiom’s new service, Relevance-X, goes further, drawing on the company’s database of 133 million households to determine which Target online Ads to show. Acxiom’s consumer database includes information gleaned from sources such as public real-estate and motor-vehicle records, surveys and warrantee cards consumers fill out. Estimates of annual income, Target online Ads,marital status, average ages of kids, home ownership and property value, educational level and travel histories are also available.


	Firm Mines Offline Data To Target online Ads Home Page

	Acxiom Corp. knows a lot about you. It has scoured public records for how many cars you own and what your house is worth. It has accumulated surveys that show if you are married and how many children you have. Target online Ads And for years Acxiom sold that information to marketers eager to use it to send mailings and make telephone pitches to consumers most likely to buy. Now, the Little Rock, Ark., company is putting those hundreds of millions of bits of data in the service of customizing which display ads to show people browsing the Web—a development that has raised red flags with some privacy advocates. Acxiom’s latest effort, announced yesterday, is one of the most aggressive in a broad push by Internet and online-ad companies to target display ads to specific groups of users. Target online Ads Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are among the Internet companies that engage in so-called behavioral targeting, using information such as users’ Web search habits and the pages they visit to pick which ads to show them when they visit their own or partner Web sites. Time Warner Inc.’s AOL unit recently bought behavioral targeting firm Tacoda Inc. Target online Ads and is planning to include more targeting technology in its online-ad offerings, which includes the network Advertising.com that sells ads on thousands of Web sites. Behavioral targeting allows a Web publisher, for example, to charge premium rates for a luxury-car ad even on a lightly visited site about needlepoint, if the user’s previous Web activity shows an interest in buying an automobile. In the U.S. this year, advertisers will spend $575 million on these behaviorally Target online Ads, rising to a projected $3.8 billion in 2011, according to research firm eMarketer Inc. Acxiom—which recently had private-equity buyers break off a proposed $2.25 billion deal for the company—has been building up its online-ad business, including the September acquisition of behavioral-targeting firm EchoTarget Inc. “The way targeting happens in the online world today isn’t all that sophisticated,” says Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Rich Howe. Acxiom’s new service, Relevance-X, goes further, drawing on the company’s database of 133 million households to determine which Target online Ads to show. Acxiom’s consumer database includes information gleaned from sources such as public real-estate and motor-vehicle records, surveys and warrantee cards consumers fill out. Estimates of annual income, Target online Ads,marital status, average ages of kids, home ownership and property value, educational level and travel histories are also available.