Marketing 101: Behavioral Marketing

Behaviorial Marketing

Behavioral marketing, also known as behavioral targeting, is a digital marketing tactic that many companies leverage to get more sales. Keep reading to learn what exactly behavioral marketing is, the consumer data behavioral marketers need to be successful, and some benefits of behavioral marketing. 

What is Behavioral Marketing?

The marketing giant, HubSpot, defines behavioral marketing as a digital marketing tactic “by which companies target audiences based on their behavior, interests, intentions, geolocation, and other metrics using web analytics, cookies, search history, and other insights.”

Essentially, behavioral targeting allows companies to segment their ads and other marketing content by audience based on that audience’s specific behaviors. And, by segmenting their customers, companies are able to deliver relevant marketing content, rather than a generic marketing message, to those customers in hopes to get them to buy their products or services.   

Marketing expert, Neil Patel, defines behavioral marketing as a “strategy of targeting leads or customers based on specific actions they take on a website, rather than just the pages they view.” Patel goes on to say that as a potential customer “visits pages, browses products, or lingers on certain coupons, offers become more targeted and precise. The more information an ad network has, the better they can define an ad’s behavioral segmentation to reach the right people at the right time.”

You can see one of the best examples of behavioral marketing when shopping on Amazon. You know those “more items to explore,” “top picks to explore” and “top picks to go with your recent purchases“ that pop up when you’re browsing on Amazon? That is classic behavioral marketing because those items being shown to you are all based on your purchase and browsing history. 

Also, it is worth mentioning that retargeting/remarketing, which we talked about in our post: What Is Remarketing?, is a type of behavioral marketing because it allows companies to deliver personalized, relevant ads to people who have previously visited their website. 

Data Companies Use for Behavioral Marketing

In order to successfully leverage behavioral targeting, companies must gather specific data from potential customers, like

  • Location 
  • Browsing history
  • Search history
  • IP addresses
  • Cookies 
  • Purchase history 
  • App data
  • Age range
  • Education level
  • Race
  • Gender 

Benefits of Behavioral Marketing

Behavioral marketing has a lot of unique benefits.

1. It helps companies avoid “banner blindness” of their ads.

Banner blindness occurs when consumers ignore online advertisements they think are too aggressive, intrusive, or not applicable to them. Because behavioral targeting helps companies to deliver content potential customers will most likely find relevant, they won’t have to worry about banner blindness. 

2. Behavioral marketing allows brands to personalize their marketing messages.

According to Econsultancy deputy editor, Christopher Ratcliff, personalized marketing messages are more “efficient” because they are targeted at users who are likely to be interested in the company’s products. And, tailored messages have a “higher chance of eliciting a positive response.”

3. Behavioral marketing ads have better open rates, click rates, and ROI than traditional ads.

Econsultancy: deputy editor, Christopher Ratcliff, states that behavioral marketing offers greater ROI because companies aren’t wasting money on “poorly targeted ads.” And, these types of ads also have better open rates as well as click rates. 

EmoryDay Can Handle Your Behavioral Marketing Needs

If you are interested in implementing behavioral marketing into your existing marketing plan, EmoryDay is happy to help!  We are a full-service digital marketing agency that has a history of helping companies increase their leads and sales.  

We are currently offering a 30-day free trial so you can try out our services. Or, if you have any questions about our digital marketing services, just fill out our contact form or give us a call at (866) 407-2075. 

Sources

https://neilpatel.com/blog/behavioral-marketing/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-behavioral-marketing

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