Theory where interest targeted ads help

It's ideal for newspapers

[jetteroheller]

How to target ads in a newspaper?

Maybe there is just an article about a bank manager arrested.

AdSenses sees in the article

manager money washing tax

AdSense brings some ads about

banks
tax consulting
quick money

but the visitor visited the page only, because he is interested in the news.

Here helps behavior targeting. Maybe he visited this week 3 times a page about green widgets.

Complete different is the situation, when the same person searches for blue widgets, visits a page about blue widgets, but there are only ads about green widgets on the page.

[swa66]

Only for the current articles / the home page, if they found the article via a search ("the long tail") the visitor is going to be interested in the content itself.

Similarly a newspaper being of a certain part of the political spectrum might not be happy about having ads supporting the opposite opinion plastered on their front page when somebody with an opposing viewpoint surfs to them.

Nothing but trouble if you ask me. Those who really want this should opt in, all the rest of us should be left out completely.

[jetteroheller]

I think many visitors of my site just develop a new interest.

So it's not good, when they see all the ads following them since many years.

That's the theory

Now I am curious for the praxis after I turned of behavior targeted ads 8 hours ago.

[signor_john]

"Interest-based" or behaviorally-targeted ads may be useful for all kinds of general-interest information sites and portals, not just for newspapers. They could prove to be a boon for many of the publshers here who complain that they only get mistargeted ads or "fight belly fat" ads.

That doesn't man they'll be a panacea: An "interest-based" ad on a news site, social-networking site, or portal isn't likely to perform as well (orto be worth as much money) as a properly-targeted contextual ad on a niche site where readers are researching purchases. But they should be an improvement over generic placement-targeted CPM ads.