So what is this all about? In my opinion Behavioral Targeting (or any kind of targeting) is about reaching users/visitors /customers not behaviors.

Anyway, even if they are reporting their reach in terms of numbers of behaviors, then how are they counting behaviors? The way I think of behaviors, Revenue Science is underreporting reporting the number of behaviors they reach everyday, it has to be way more than 1 Billion. Let me show you how a single visitor can exhibit over a Billion behaviors.

What is an online behavior?

Every single action that a user takes on the site determines the user’s behavior. Following are some of the different elements that determine the behaviors of users online:

1. Every page view
2. Number of minutes on a page
3. Path taken
4. Links/Ads clicked
5. Scrolling on the page
6. Referring Sites
7. Each second in the visit
8. Each visit
9. Total Visits
10. Total Page views
11. each Product viewed
12. Each cart abandoned
13. Each step of the funnel completed/abandoned
and the list goes on…

Let’s take a site with 30 pages. A single user visits all 30 pages. So how many behaviors has this user exhibited? According to my calculation, way over 1 Billion.

How do you calculate online behaviors? (I am only going to count pages viewed to count behaviors)

Each page view by itself is a unique behavior; so this user has exhibited 30 behaviors by viewing all 30 pages.
Combination of pages 1 and 2 is a unique behavior too, that is one more behavior, so total is now 31.
Every combination of these 30 pages will be a unique behavior exhibited by this user.
So how many combinations of 30 pages exist? I am not going to go into details of calculus but show you the formulas here

ⁿC_k = The number of combinations of n things taken k at a time
The sum of all the combinations of n distinct things is 2ⁿ.
ⁿC₀ + ⁿC₁ + ⁿC₂ + . . . + ⁿC_n = 2ⁿ

We won’t count any combination with 0 page views (i.e. the user never showed up on the site) so in our example above
ⁿC₁ + ⁿC₂ + . . . + ⁿC_n = 2ⁿ – ⁿC₀
i.e.ⁿC₁ + ⁿC₂ + . . . + ⁿC_n = 2ⁿ – 1

So, combinations of 30 different page views (behaviors) = 2³⁰ – 1
That comes to 1, 073, 741, 823 Behaviors. That comes to 1, 073, 741, 823 Behaviors. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=2**30+-1&btnG=Search)

Yes over a billion behaviors exhibited by 1 user viewing 30 pages.

If I take various other elements that define behavior (see above) than you don’t even need 30 pages to reach 1 Billion behaviors.

Conclusion

Behaviors motivate but people read your content and buy your products. In my opinion, it is not about how many behaviors a BT vendor can reach, it is about how many customers they can reach.

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Anil has over 10 years of experience in Consulting, Business Intelligence, Web Analytics, Online Advertising and Behavioral Targeting. Anil helps companies use Web channel data to improve online business results (lead generation, conversion, retention and self-help metrics). Anil has helped several fortune 500 customers effectively use web analytics and increase their ROI on the web. Anil has worked with customers such as Microsoft, SmartMoney.com, ESPN, T-Mobile, Hoovers, Realnetworks, Starbucks, and TheStreet.com

Anil holds a B. Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from India and an MBA from University of Washington, Seattle.

A few data points:

Steve Gillmor raps on two different ways that the actions and behaviors of customers (he calls them “users”) are captured into the emerging world:

“By definition, the Windows data represents behavior under the terms and conditions of the Windows/Office/DRM/PlaysForSure contract with the user — managed via IT, structured around the corporate hierarchical notions of enterprise ownership of user data and behavior, and so on. And in turn, the same can be said of the Google/Skype/Yahoo/Salesforce contract — different in that users can navigate across corporate domains but remain subtly constrained by, as Doc suggests, the tyranny of inference derived but not related from the user’s behavior. Both clouds are captured, prisoners of war in the battle for access to the intentions of the user/creator of these signals.”

Doc Searls cuts to the chase:

“It’s a market opportunity to equip the demand side with better tools for relating to the supply side. That’s what Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is about. When we have that, the supply side will start rebuilding their CRMs as systems that actually relate to us, rather than try to corrall and milk us like cattle.”

Dave Winer thinks it’s about getting critical mass:

“If I had a place where I kept my movie ratings and gave [Netflix and Yahoo] a pointer to it, they could read it and I would control the data. It would be very easy to set up, the technology is no trick at all. The hard part is getting enough users to do it this way to gain critical mass.”

[ed. - I'm a technologist, and I'm also a pragmatist. There are some portions of this that will be solved via technical means, naturally. But, in my gut, I still feel that a big portion of this will be solved the way that business has been done for the past few millenia, by way of actual people connecting with each other and building trusted relationships.]

Now, Mitch Ratcliffe tempers Doc and Steve with a very rational position:

“Attention often comes after the initial exchange has been offered, so the evolution of demand-side systems for making our desires clear should evolve from the bottom up and obliterate the existing CRM system as a mechanism for command-and-control. But no one has found the motivating force that will catalyze a market reversal and the likelihood is that the market will never flip over because, frankly, we don’t always know what we want until we see it. That’s the creativity and innovation folks are always talking about in action-new value comes from contrarians who reshape the world rather than just roll with it.”

Here’s some further thinking on this, intended to provoke discussion:

(1) Where we are today

(2) Where we seem to be heading

(3) A place of ultimate “crowdsourcing” (we may also be heading here)

(4) The parking lot of a Phish concert

I really like the idea of Area 2. It’s a place of give and take, where vendor and customer meet as equals.

Further reading: The corollary

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Christopher Carfi, CEO and co-founder of Cerado, looks at sales, marketing, and the business experience from the customers point of view. He currently is focused on understanding how emerging social technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking are enabling the creation of new types of customer-driven communities. He is the author of the Social Customer Manifesto weblog, and has been occasionally told that he drives and snowboards just a little too quickly.

“I know it galls Jason Calacanis that his sites are about as memorable as Burger King franchises, and that none register among the top blogs, except Pete Rojas’s Engadget,” he said.

Denton added, “But Jason Calacanis misses the big picture. The study finally provides evidence for what we’ve all hoped for: that blog readers are younger and richer than average, and, one hopes, thinner.”

I’m not sure where the thinner’ comment comes from – or is Nick preempting a diet blog’ announcement?

Meanwhile Jason’s blog has become even more focussed upon the study (5 of his last 7 posts are on the topic).

Where will this all end I wonder? And is anyone taking any notice anyway?

Reader Comments…

Darren Rowse is the founder of ProBlogger.net, a blog about the many ways of adding an income stream to blogs.

Darren owns and writes a variety of blogs including Digital Photography Blog and Camera Phone
Zone. He is also a co-founder of the Breaking News Blog Collective.

Built on Coremetrics LIVE Profiles, the most accurate and complete source of online visitor behavior data, LIVEmark breaks new ground by enabling e-commerce executives and managers to precisely measure themselves against industry averages on such key performance indicators as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness, and conversion rates. LIVEmark participants gain a clear understanding of business performance relative to peers and competitors so they can effectively manage online marketing investments and anticipate industry threats and trends.

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Coremetrics LIVE (Lifetime Individual Visitor Experience) profiles store all visitor and customer clickstream data for clients representing more than $10 billion in annual online revenue. With LIVEmark, Coremetrics offers its clients a new way to benefit from the unparalleled depth, accuracy and comprehensiveness of this data. The opt-in LIVEmark Index provides participating companies with a set of aggregate benchmark metrics across the industry, as well as their specific category. Unlike measurements that use extrapolations of survey or sampling data, LIVEmark collects a complete record of online visitor behavior resulting in a precise measure of industry performance.

“LIVEmark provides today’s multi-channel retailers with a full understanding of what is needed to drive profitability in the online channel,” said Joe Davis, Coremetrics CEO and president. “The depth and quality of our client base is what makes these benchmarks so valuable. We serve more online retailers than all our competitors combined and watch $10 billion in annual revenues cross our client networkit is truly a community worth measuring up to.”

LIVEmark marks the first time that e-commerce managers can compare key performance indicators to industry peers and competitors. All metrics are created using consistent logic within Coremetrics Online Analytics, providing accurate comparisons that are immediately actionable. For example, clients can compare the conversion rate of their on-site search engine to the LIVEmark Index to determine whether they need to increase investment in on-site search tools and optimization. Easy-to-use reports track company performance against the entire LIVEmark Index, as well as the appropriate sub-vertical category, and provide immediate drill down into areas of interest of concern.

“Using only survey data, we were never able to get a complete picture of how our processes stacked up against industry best practices,” said Heather Blank, director of e-commerce marketing at PETCO. “LIVEmark delivers benchmark metrics that are consistent with our key performance indicators, allowing us to take action on industry data rather than questioning how to interpret it.”

LIVEmark provides over 35 measurements and metrics in key areas include:

Session Traffic – Comparing site effectiveness at key conversion points in the visitor experience allows e-commerce managers to determine where site content and merchandising investments are required;

Visitor Experience – The LIVEmark Index tracks site “stickiness” to enable participants to determine their value of investment in rich media and content;

Transactions – Key metrics, such as average order value, new visitor conversion and shopping cart abandonment, provide insight into the effectiveness of product creative, pricing, and placement relative to industry leaders;

On-Site Search – Clients can compare the conversion rate of their onsite search engine to the LIVEmark Index and determine whether they should increase investment in on-site search tools and optimization;

Online Marketing Campaigns (Email, Natural Search, Affiliate, PPC) – E-commerce managers can now measure their ability to drive and convert site traffic through direct load, natural search, referrals, and paid marketing channels, as well as understand marketing performance and investment levels relative to benchmark brands.

To ensure that security and privacy are never compromised, summary data for participating clients is collected and aggregated to build the LIVEmark Index. Client specific data is never made available to participating members or disclosed publicly.

LIVEmark is immediately available to all Coremetrics clients at no additional charge. The LIVEmark Index includes a benchmark of all participating retailers as well as seven categories: Apparel & Accessories, Specialty Retail, Sports and Outdoor, Home, Garden, General Merchandisers, and Books/Music/Video. The LIVEmark Index will expand over time to include additional industries and categories.

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You’ll make better choices and see the value in seemingly insignificant or trivial tasks. It keeps you focused on doing what needs to be done to get what you say you want.

It’s one thing to say what you want, to choose projects that will get you what you want, and set goals that will achieve those projects. But, you still have to do the work. You still have to pay the price by just doing it.

Linking your purpose to your daily behaviors underlines the responsibility and the discipline you need to complete your projects.

Having an overall objective and doing what needs to be done gets priority. You can make your choices about what you are doing consciously, knowing that every little bit helps.

For example, one of your projects in support of your purpose of a successful one-person business may be getting a web site to promote your business.

Choosing to bring your lunch rather than spending eight dollars at the caf every day is obviously the right choice. By doing the math, you quickly see you’ll save about $150 a month on lunch. Putting that money aside will get you your new web site that much faster.

It’s the little things done consistently and persistently that make the huge difference in achieving our projects, whatever our projects are.

Even with marketing and sales. New behavioral research has shown smaller tasks done more often are more effective in reaching your goals than larger projects done less frequently. Even if a larger project puts you in front of more people, it still isn’t as effective as more frequent, smaller contacts.

Build in momentum sustainers. If you’re like most people you start out a new project enthusiastically, and then lose track of it in the bustle of all your other obligations.

By building in appointments with people to check in with, and appointments with yourself for review, you force yourself to be accountable. You might want to set up weekly goals for yourself, or make an agreement to accomplish specific tasks by your next check in date.

Additional techniques for linking daily behaviors and long-term projects include: * Remind yourself what to do to support your purpose. Put up reminder notes around your house to keep your purpose front and center.

(c) 2004, Pat Wilklund. All rights in all media reserved.

Patricia Wiklund Ph.D. works with managers who are challenged with a difficult employee or colleague, and organizations that need to get back on track to effectiveness and productivity. Start increasing your management and leadership skills with her new audio coaching program on Emotional Intelligence: The Leadership Edge. Just click here: http://www.PatWiklund.com/eiaudiocoaching.shtml Contact Pat at Pat@patwiklund.com

The payoff? When those audiences do what you want them to do, achieving your organizational objectives gets a lot easier. That’s why this article is all about how to make welcome, key-audience behavior a regular occurrence.

Some of us learned long ago that people act on their own perceptions of the facts, leading to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. We call all those perceptions opinion…public opinion.

So, public relations tries to create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect your organization.

Oh, those painful behaviors.
Negative perceptions almost always lead to unhappy behaviors such as loud complaints about slipshod association communications, cancelled reservations due to a motel chain’s housekeeping mismanagement, or falling sales because of a fast food product’s poor taste.

What to do About Them
How can any business prepare itself to deal effectively with such key-audience, opinion challenges?

Well, because public relations problems are usually defined by what people THINK about a set of facts, as opposed to the actual truth of the matter, one would be well-advised to focus on three realities:

1. People act on their perception of the facts;
2. Those perceptions lead to certain behaviors;
3. Something can be done about those perceptions and behaviors that leads to achieving the organization’s objectives.

First, what’s the Problem?
Identify the key operating problem. Is it declining sales in a specific product line or location? Is it an allegation of wrongdoing? Is it a quality or performance issue? Has an elected official spoken negatively about your industry? Have you learned that a national activist group may target your business? Or, is there simply clear evidence of negative behaviors among your key audiences?

Set the public relations goal.
Let’s say there’s a perception that you lost a key customer which concerns your workers. That gives you some hiring and retention problems, and it also worries your suppliers and some community leaders. Since it isn’t true, you set the following public relations goal:

Change the negative perceptions of the company’s customer longevity from negative to positive, thus correcting the hiring and retention problems and calming supplier and community concerns.

What about the public relations strategy?
Now, you must select one of three choices available to you when selecting a proper strategy. In this example, you are choosing to CHANGE existing opinion rather than CREATE opinion where none exists, or REINFORCE an existing opinion, neither of which are applicable to this case.

With your perception and behavior modification goals, and now the strategy set down, progress will be measured in terms of reduced employee departures, a satisfactory increase in the company’s employee retention rate as well as reassured suppliers and community leaders.

But who do we talk to?
Identifying key audiences and prioritizing them – crucial steps in any public relations action planning – were identified early on in this example as employees, suppliers and the community-at-large and its leaders, in that priority order.

And what do we say?
The messages must disarm the rumor with clear evidence such as plain talk by the boss possibly speaking before a town meeting in the event turmoil increases. It might be smart to seek a public endorsement by a believable third-party. It could even be reassurance by the “large customer” himself, or herself, that “we have no intention of switching suppliers as long as the company continues to provide the same superior quality, service and pricing it now does.”

It’s Tactics Time
Now, you select the most effective communications tactics available to you, and kickoff your action plan.

How will your target audiences actually be reached? Choices include face-to-face meetings, email, hand-placed feature articles and broadcast appearances, special employee, supplier or community briefings, news releases, announcement luncheons, onsite media interviews, facility tours, promotional contests, brochures and a host of other carefully targeted communications tactics.

So, how are we doing?
Signs that your messages are moving employee, supplier and community opinion in your direction will begin showing up. Signs like comments in community meetings, local newspaper editorials, e-mails from suppliers as well as public references by political figures and local celebrities.

The End Game
By this time, your action program should begin to attract the sort of employee, supplier and community understanding that leads to the behavior shifts you want – namely, the unsettling rumor has been disarmed and operations are returning to normal.

You know you’ve arrived at the public relations end game when the changes in behaviors become really apparent through supportive media reports, positive supplier and thought-leader comment, and increasingly upbeat employee and community chatter.

In the end, a sound strategy using high-impact tactics helps achieve program success – perceptions that have been altered leading to behaviors that have been modified, and another win for public relations.

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and
association managers about using the fundamental premise of public
relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR,
Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR,
Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communi-
cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press
secretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree
from Columbia University, major in public relations.
bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.prcommentary.com