The Rogue Marketer

The Yahoo Smartads announcement this morning is a definite step forward in creating a better match between advertising messages and consumer exposure.  Click through rates promise to dramatically increase with messaging that improves the match between consumer desire and advertising message.

SmartAds are dynamically created and placed based on your pattern of recent searches.  For example, if you recently searched for hiking gear and then searched for travel bargains in Vermont, a SmartAd would appear that promotes hiking vacations in Vermont.

SmartAds are a major step forward for advertisers.  Beyond the obvious, SmarAds are made for behavioral targeting.  Consumers tend to have life themes and the best marketers understand how these themes transcend all aspects of a prospects behavior.  With SmartAds you can identify which aspects of an individuals life theme triggers behavior and then target them.  If drinking and gambling are associated with individuals that buy fast cars, then SmartAds can be created to sell cars based on the association with the aforementioned search characteristics. 

The implications of Yahoo Smartads on the direct marketing industry are significant.  With improvement in targeting efficiency, other forms of direct marketing such as mail will appear inefficient in comparison.  Individuals that specialize in data analytics will be needed to understand which advertising permutations create the greatest yield.

For the advertising community, SmartAds are Smart.