5 Steps to Using Behavioral Targeting Effectively

4. Be consistent. Consistency goes hand in hand with relevancy and is crucial for successful behavioral targeting strategies. Customers expect a similar experience from a brand, no matter which channels they interact with you in. If your business's online, retail and call-center marketing departments aren't all aligned, customers will notice.

5. Pay attention to customer responses. Carefully evaluate your customer contacts and the histories of their responses to determine whether they find the targeted content you’ve offered useful. If they haven’t clicked on information or multiple offers targeted to them, then you shouldn’t keep using the same content repeatedly.

It's your job as a marketer to educate and reassure consumers that behavioral targeting can benefit them. It’s about providing a service, not spying on their every move. Whether you focus on site-side or behavioral ad targeting, respect your customers and ensure their privacy.

Akin Arikan is the director of product marketing and strategy at Unica, a Waltham, Mass.-based provider of enterprise marketing management. Akin can be reached at aarikan@unica.com.