Social graph ad targeting is a way for marketers to target consumers based on who they’re connected to within online social networks.

Marketers often run campaigns that target consumers based on their age and gender (demographic), where they live or happen to be at the moment (geographic), what they’re viewing on a Web page (contextual), what Web sites they’ve visited and what they do there (behavioral), or what keywords they’re entering in a query box (search engine marketing). With social graph ad targeting, it’s now possible to target consumers based on their associations with each other.

This type of marketing targets consumers based on their social graph, or the map of who they’re connected to – and it can happen several ways:

• Within a social network
• Across social networks
• Across publishers

The following 360i report includes an overview of this type of ad targeting, reviews notable vendors in the space and addresses the key questions marketers should ask when considering running such advertising.

360i POV on Social Graph Ad Targeting

So what’s one of the world’s most respected venture capitalists talking about at Ad Age Digital? Earned media.

He noted paid media’s about media and creative. Earned media’s about conversations, and also analysis. (He blogged about earned media recently if you want more on this).

He actually proposed a future scenario, soon available (along with the rest of his presentation), on his A VC blog, where overall marketing spending rises thanks to increases in spending on technology and creative, but a decrease in spending on media. He’s not even labeling this a prediction, but more of a possibility.

Read the full article

By Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i

Display advertising: Can it be both a branding and a performance marketing tool? I’d argue yes, but not at the same time. And that’s where some of the recent debates over the art-and-science approach to display have gotten it wrong.

You see, we need to rethink the way we buy and sell display advertising in a way that clearly distinguishes between various marketers’ objectives — whether that is direct response (e.g., e-commerce sales or generating web leads) or enhancing the brand (influencing purchase intent, favorability ratings, etc). We’ll be best served by treating it not as a hybrid but as two different tactics.

Read the full article

Google’s taking a stab at behavioral, albeit with a bit more disclosure than James Stewart in “Rear Window” (1954).

Big news today – Google is getting into Behavioral Advertising. Surprising, considering the search leviathan has never been keen on Behavioral. Not surprising, considering Google Display was being left behind by competitors in the space, including Yahoo!, when it came to user-level targeting. Read the full article

by Chris Hansen
VP of Performance Marketing, 360i

This week, the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) released its 2008 NAI Principles. These principles are designed to provide member advertising networks, specifically those that offer behavioral targeting, a code of conduct for data collection and a set of rules regarding user privacy. The main goal of these guidelines is to create a unified set of best practices for the industry to follow as a means of self regulation and to stave off potential governmental legislation in this area.

So what impact do these principles have on the behavioral programs you may be running? Frankly, for most marketers, there will be no impact. Most large advertising networks, specifically those networks 360i works with, are already part of the NAI and have been working under similar guidelines. The NAI Principles are merely a formal declaration of the rules and best practices that the NAI and its member networks have followed for some time. If you are currently running a program using some form of behavioral targeting, including remarketing or re-targeting, and are working with a network that is part of the NAI, then you are in compliance with their guidelines and should feel comfortable that you are employing industry best practices.  

Specifically, these networks will not and do not: 

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