There are three components required for behavioral targeting to work. There needs to be an origination network in order to have a place to capture the behavior, a distribution network where ads can be delivered to consumers who have exhibited the behavior, and sophisticated technology to make it all work.

The Origination Network

The origination network is comprised of 3rd party automotive research sites that would qualify the internet user as a serious car shopper. This is captured by embedding a cookie in the users' browser and then identifying where the car shopper went within the ad network. There are a number of ways to identify and segment behavior from an advertiser perspective. Some of the main ways include:

Conquesting: Conquesting looks at users who have researched pages at the model level. For instance, Honda could track users who have visited Toyota model pages and then serve ads to car shoppers who have exhibited that particular behavior.

Category Level: The category level of targeting focuses on users who have researched pages at the category level of a research site such as SUVs or Sedans.

Retention: Retention identifies users who have researched the manufacturers own vehicle pages.

Proprietary Re-targeting: Allows an advertiser to re-target messaging to car shoppers who have actually been on their own manufacturer website. This is a new form of targeting and likely to yield considerably higher results since these are incredibly hot prospects already.

Other forms of segmenting include geography by zip code and DMA, recency of last visit to origination network and user engagement or user depth in terms of how many key origination pages visited.

In addition to the ways mentioned above, there are nearly an unlimited number of other possibilities for manufacturers to target car shoppers through such ways as conquesting just Japanese imports or small SUVs. The only thing to consider from an advertising perspective is that the more granular the behavior, typically the less inventory there will be available.

The Distribution Network

The distribution network is made up of sites that are non-automotive related, often referred to as lifestyle sites. When a car shopper who has been identified based on the behavior captured in the origination network lands on a site that is part of the distribution network, a manufacturers' ad is served to car shoppers who exhibited that particular behavior.

The Technology

The technology sits in between the origination network and the distribution network. It is the behind the scenes component that captures, segments, and matches the car shoppers behavior.