Behavioral targeting is important for a number of reasons.

1. Offset Inventory Scarcity : It enables advertisers to offset some of the massive flooding of manufacturer dollars into 3rd party research sites which over the past couple of years has caused CPMs to rise and inventory to increasingly become scarce.

2. Better Ad Performance: In some cases, behavioral targeting can actually perform better than advertising within a contextual automotive research environment. Studies have actually  shown that ads that are displayed behaviorally in a non-contextual environment actually get  more looks than when served in a contextual environment

3. More Touch Points: Behavioral targeting allows for advertisers to increase the number of touch points of a car shopper during the time they are likely to be in-market. Research indicates that the average car shopper is in-market anywhere from 8 - 12 weeks from the moment they become in-market to the time they make their vehicle purchase. During this time, car shoppers spend roughly less than 3% of their total online time actually conducting research. That leaves 97% of the remaining time spent on the internet during this period they are in-market on non-automotive research sites.

4. Conquesting Availability: Behavioral targeting once again provides advertisers the ability to implement a conquesting strategy that is all but extinct on 3rd party research sites as a result of most OEMs buying up all of their retention pages.