Briefs

By Kate Kaye, The ClickZ Network, Dec 6, 2007

Revenue Science has gone a step beyond the behavioral targeting network model by implementing an exchange platform for connecting advertisers with publishers. The company has been awarded a U.S. Patent for a technology that serves behaviorally-targeted ads on behalf of the highest bidding advertisers.

Most ad exchanges, such as Microsoft's AdECN and Yahoo's Right Media, allow media buyers to place bids and publishers to offer inventory by using their exchange interfaces themselves; however Revenue Science's exchange technology is for use behind the scenes by the company alone, for now.

"With behavioral targeting, it's a lot more complicated at this time," said Revenue Science CTO Basem Nayfeh. "But that's definitely where we're headed," he added, referring to the potential of opening the auction-based exchange interface to the entities actually making the transaction, the publishers and the advertisers.

All audience-based targeting will be implemented through an ad exchange model in the future, predicted Nayfeh.

With the introduction of the exchange element, the behavioral targeting network sector seems to be getting even more complicated than before. For instance, Right Media, which runs an ad exchange of its own, has partnered with Revenue Science, enabling publishers using Right Media's ad network management tool to sell inventory to Revenue Science's network.

Another competitor in the behavioral network space, AlmondNet, also works with exchanges sometimes.

Revenue Science, like other behavioral ad networks, collects data gleaned on user behavior with network sites and non-network sites and determines which users might be in-market for a car or a mortgage loan, for instance. When a user in the desired audience segment returns to a site in the network, the user is recognized by the ad serving platform and served a targeted ad based on previous interactions with that site, such as viewing content about a particular travel destination.

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