With the rapid expansion of the Internet advertising market these days, the advertising industry has come under scrutiny from the perspective of protecting personal information and privacy. This trend is spreading worldwide, and the movement to regulate cookies is one of them. In the future, it is expected that it will be necessary to move away from targeting methods that rely on cookies.
In this article, we will provide an overview of behavioral targeting and explain what will happen to the advertising industry if behavioral targeting becomes impossible due to cookie regulations.
What is behavioral targeting?
Behavioral targeting is the process of analyzing a user’s hobbies and preferences based on the user’s website access history, search history, browsing history, etc., and delivering advertisements that are presumed to be of interest to the user. By using behavioral targeting, you can conduct highly accurate marketing limited to users who are likely to be interested in your company’s products and services.
However, “cookies” are used for behavioral targeting, and regulations are spreading worldwide.
A cookie is a mechanism that temporarily stores a user’s data history, and in recent years, as personal information management systems have become stricter, there has been a growing movement to regulate cookies. Therefore, it is considered that the impact of cookie regulations is unavoidable in behavioral targeting that analyzes user history stored by cookies.
Impact of cookie regulation on behavioral targeting
Currently, the Internet advertising market is growing significantly, and anyone who uses the Internet is likely to see advertisements on a daily basis. However, while the market is expanding, it is important to remember that user privacy issues are also coming under scrutiny.
If cookies are regulated and more users refuse to be tracked by cookies, behavioral targeting will no longer work. If the marketing effectiveness of advertising declines, the advertising industry’s profits are expected to decline as well.
However, in the advertising industry, which has a large social impact, protecting user privacy leads to social trust.
Excessive tracking through behavioral targeting may result in damage such as user data leakage. Additionally, advertisements displayed through behavioral targeting may not necessarily be of interest to users. If an advertisement appears that does not meet the user’s wishes, the user will find the existence of the advertisement annoying.
Therefore, although the impact of cookie regulations on behavioral targeting cannot be ignored, it is also possible for the advertising industry to grow sustainably by protecting user safety and gaining trust.
The future of the advertising industry where behavioral targeting is not possible
As behavioral targeting becomes impossible due to cookie regulations, advertisers will focus on creating high-quality content. In other words, in the future, there is a possibility that content marketing and contextual targeting will change to meet the needs of users.
It is true that if behavioral targeting becomes impossible, the number of ad impressions displayed will decrease significantly. However, if you attract users’ interest with high-quality content, the quality of impressions and unit price can increase. A decrease in impressions is not necessarily a negative factor.
Additionally, it cannot be denied that behavioral targeting using cookies is less effective than conventional methods. Nowadays, there are various information and communication devices, operating systems, browsers, applications, etc., and we live in an era where each person uses multiple of these devices. Behavioral targeting was effective in the days when only one PC was used, but now it is difficult to reflect user preferences as well as in those days.
What the advertising industry will need in the future is to deliver content that matches users’ needs and intentions without relying on cookies. Due in part to cookie regulations, tools have recently been developed to determine user interests without using cookies. Although it is possible to use these tools, it is also very effective to go back to the basics and mass-produce high-quality content.
Also, if excessive advertisements are no longer displayed, users will no longer feel intrusive. If we can deliver the content that users want in a well-balanced manner, I believe that trust in the advertising industry will increase.
summary
◆Behavioral targeting is the process of analyzing a user’s hobbies based on their history of website access and delivering advertisements that are likely to be of interest to the user.
◆If a user refuses tracking due to cookie regulations, behavioral targeting based on cookie information may be significantly affected.
◆If behavioral targeting becomes impossible, it will be necessary to find a marketing strategy that does not rely on cookies. Methods include creating high-quality content that meets user needs and using user identification tools that do not use cookies.