As expected (see my earlier article), ValueClick has officially announced the launch of their Precision BT suite, providing new opportunities for behavioral targeting. Below is the press release, issues just moments ago.
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – July 21, 2008 – ValueClick Media, a division of ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq:VCLK), announced the availability of its Precision BT(TM) suite today, combining access to a wealth of anonymous consumer online behavior with an innovative predictive technology to create the most robust and scalable behavioral targeting solution available to marketers.
The Precision BT(TM) suite contains two products, including Precision Retargeting(TM), an enhanced version of the user retargeting capabilities offered by ValueClick Media since 2005, and Precision Profiles(TM), which uses a proprietary predictive algorithm to identify a marketer’s best prospects in hundreds of consumer interest segments.
Until now, predictive algorithms have rarely been applied to behavioral targeting, compared to the common cluster and custom business rules approaches popularized by Tacoda and Revenue Science, respectively. Predictive analytics includes only the best consumers in each segment at any given time, based on a marketer’s intended objective and the consumer’s likelihood to take action in the future.
“What makes Precision Profiles(TM) unique is our access to a critical mass of anonymous consumer online experiences and the way our technology dynamically categorizes and transforms them into hundreds of interest segments,” said Matthew Boyd, senior vice president, ValueClick Media. “Combined with the ability for our optimization technology to identify the best possible context in which to serve an ad, we have assembled the most scalable, data-driven audience targeting platform for marketers to achieve their brand and direct response objectives.”
Several key features set Precision Profiles(TM) apart from other behavioral targeting solutions currently available today, including:
Data
— Access to a wider spectrum of anonymous consumer online behavior (including web browsing, ad interaction, search and shopping behavior) results in more granular profiles and a higher likelihood of reaching the most qualified audience;
— Complete respect for consumers’ online privacy offers a PII-safe solution that, unlike portals, never stores personally-identifiable information such as names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses in association with interest profiles;
Approach
— A predictive algorithm, not the marketer, identifies and
continually updates consumer eligibility for each interest
segment based on their future likelihood to click or convert,
not just the recency and frequency of their online behavior;
— Segment composition is dynamic and adapts to the changing
behavior of consumers as well as the objectives and
performance of each marketer;
— Consumers can belong to one or more interest segments, not
just a single, pre-defined cluster, increasing the likelihood
of reaching them at the right time and in all of their
multi-faceted interests;
Scale
— ValueClick Media’s extensive reach enables behavioral
targeting delivery on a scalable, worldwide basis from a
single partner within a safe, highly-controlled ad network
environment.
— Flexible profiles enable clients to develop, target and scale
custom segments based on their own definitions using their own
data, rather than forcing them to use pre-identified segments
that consist of only ValueClick data
During a recent beta period, clients testing Precision Profiles(TM) reported a significant impact on their campaigns. For example, one online games client achieved a 298 percent lift in conversion rates over an optimized control group. In a head-to-head comparison, conversions for one mobile campaign outperformed other behavioral targeting vendors 11 to one while keeping within the client’s target cost-per-action goal.
“We worked closely with ValueClick Media to test Precision Profiles during the beta and were impressed by the conversions compared to those of our other behavioral targeting providers,” said Reid Carr, president of Red Door Interactive.
Precision Profiles(TM) is one of two products initially available in ValueClick Media’s Precision BT(TM) suite. Precision Retargeting(TM) presents relevant messages directly to consumers who have previously demonstrated interest by visiting or taking action on a marketer’s site when they later visit any of the 13,500 sites in the ValueClick Media network. Unlike most other retargeting vendors, Precision Retargeting(TM) offers marketers the flexibility of custom recency, frequency and exclusion rules to offer highly-personalized sequential messaging. Additional behavioral targeting products will be added to the Precision BT(TM) suite in 2009.
About ValueClick Media
Over the past ten years, ValueClick Media has helped thousands of marketers build awareness, generate leads and drive sales. Clients benefit from access to ValueClick Media’s scalable, data-driven global network platform and access to the industry’s newest behavioral targeting technology. With access to 75 percent of the U.S. Internet audience through its display advertising, video, e-mail, lead generation and search channels, ValueClick Media partners with its clients to accomplish any brand or performance-based online advertising objective.
About ValueClick, Inc.
ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq:VCLK) is one of the world’s largest online marketing services companies, offering comprehensive and scalable solutions to deliver cost-effective customer acquisition for advertisers and robust revenue streams for publishers. ValueClick’s performance-based solutions allow customers to reach their potential through multiple online marketing channels, including affiliate and search marketing, display advertising, lead generation, ad serving and e-mail technology, and comparison shopping. ValueClick brands include Commission Junction, ValueClick Media, Mediaplex, PriceRunner and Smarter.com. For more information, visit www.valueclick.com.
This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the risk that market demand for on-line advertising in general, and performance based on-line advertising in particular, will not grow as rapidly as predicted, and the risk that legislation and governmental regulation could negatively impact the Company’s performance. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements are detailed under “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made from time to time by ValueClick, including, but not limited to: its annual report on Form 10-K filed on February 29, 2008; recent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q; and other current reports on Form 8-K. ValueClick undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
