Behavioral Exchanges, like BlueKai

There is a lot of talk about monetizing traffic, and smarter/more targeted ads. BlueKai is one of a handful of aggregators doing just that. There are others, like eXelate Media and Datran Media; I'll focus on BlueKai because I saw it first (and I like the logo).



Basically, BlueKai & their competition drop a cookie on your PC when you visit one of their partner sites. No big deal--just about everyone does. What they do with the cookie is leverage it to see what you're searching for. Okay, still not a big deal. We learned about the invisible pixel call that Google Analytics & other Web Analytics vendors use this week in class.

What makes these firms different is that they know you're searching in a narrow vertical or two. Let's say you go to Kayak & search for a trip to Vegas. They drop the BlueKai cookie, which knows you're in the market for a trip to Vegas. You may be shown an ad for Vegas travel on another BlueKai partner site. (Full disclosure: I work for an online travel company which is a competitor of Kayak. You'll note I've not hyperlinked either Kayak, nor my employer.)

How does it work? There is an auction where partners on the network bid on segments of aggregated data. Upon winning the auction, they get the opportunity to display relevant ads to the users in that group for a period of time.

The data expires, so they're not trying to sell you a hotel in Detroit b/c you bought tickets to Super Bowl 40 in 2006. And BlueKai doesn't sell any PII data, so privacy advocates can relax--a little. (personally, I'm more freaked out by what Axciom does than BlueKai, but that is another blog...)

Oh, and another thing. BlueKai has an idea or two about how to get around your reticence about participating.

1. They'll show you the categories of data they collect.
2. They allow you to selectively opt out (or in bulk, of course).
3. They appeal to your altruistic side and offer to donate a portion of the advertising revenue for your "profile" to one of several charities.

I think it is brilliant. The ads know what I'm looking for, and show me relevant content. I can opt out selectively, if I want. If/when they become ubiquitous, I may want to opt out.

And about the altruistic side, the charity beneficiary of my advertising? That was an easy call. I'm participating in the 5 Day Food & Water Challenge this week. Did you know:

• every 5 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related causes
• another child dies every 15 seconds from lack of clean water to drink

I have three kids, so donating the proceeds from my BlueKai profile was a no-brainer: Action Against Hunger. Hell, I might even put them on my charity giving list this year.

P.S. If you're looking for a few articles on the subject, here are a few:
Advertising Age
NY Times
Wikipedia