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Launching Numerati behavioral campaign: Will deliver 8 million targeted ads


Over the next six weeks, you may run across some of these ads
on your net wanderings. If you do, it will be because the patterns of
your browsing, the sites you visit and the articles you read, rank you
as a promising would-be reader of The Numerati.
As I explained a couple of weeks ago,
Houghton Mifflin is doing a behavioral advertising campaign for the
book with Platform-A, a division of AOL. (AOL last year bought Tacoda,
whose work I describe in the introduction to the book) So, the idea is that we're using the tools and methods of the Numerati to promote the book.
Now I have some details. The campaign, by industry standards, is
pretty small. It will deliver some 8 million targeted ads. The first
stage, which starts in the next couple of days, will scatter them to a
general audience, people in every sort of behavioral tribe imaginable.
Some might be romantic movie lovers, others John Deere aficionados.
Some may dwell at length on obituary postings. Platform-A will see if
any of these groups seem especially interested in the book. They will
also note which ads they click on. Some are cheerfully promotional,
others much more scary. (One flashing ad says: Meet The Numerati...
They've Already Met You.)
On Sept. 15, they will have the data to launch the targeted
campaign. They start out with the hypothesis that the two interested
groups will be readers of book reviews (the so-called "arts and
literature" crowd. I think of them as New Yorker readers) and those
interested in "business strategy." Unless the preliminary tests show
that another group merits their attention, they'll divide the ads
between those two. The business readers will get about 20% more, since
they're a larger group.
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A Numerati reader, perhaps?
The person I spoke to at Platform-A told me that the campaign is a
little more fractured than she'd choose. In other words, it's broken
down into more categories than most campaigns of its size, with more
ads and broader targeting. The reason: We're interested in generating
lots of data. This is an experiment for us, a new form of advertising,
and we want to learn from it.
I got more details in my phone call last night. But I think I'll horde a few of them and break them out as separate blog posts.
I should add here, especially since some of the publicity focuses on
the creepy and invasive nature of the Numerati, that neither we nor
Platform-A will know details about the Web surfers we track. No names,
no addresses, no professions. They're anonymous surfers, each defined
only by the pattern of the pages he or she visits.
As I mentioned yesterday, if you have time to take a look at the ads
please leave your thoughts about them. Are some of them offensive?
Exaggerated? Do any make you want to interrupt what you're doing and
buy the book? Of course, if you supplement your views with information
about yourself, that will give us even more data to work with... If the
two things you're buying this week are a Lamborghini and The Numerati,
you might lead us to a rich and hidden vein of potential readers.
(I also posted a version of this on Blogspotting.net)
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Kirkus Reviews - https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/stephen-baker/the-boost/

LibraryJournal - Library Journal

Booklist Reviews - David Pitt

Locus - Paul di Filippo

read more reviews



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My horrible Superbowl weekend, in perspective
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My coming novel: Boosting human cognition
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Why Nate Silver is never wrong
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The psychology behind bankers' hatred for Obama
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"Corporations are People": an op-ed
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Wall Street Journal excerpt: Final Jeopardy
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Why IBM's Watson is Smarter than Google
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The appeal of virtual
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