Neural Applications to Customize Ad Targeting for Site Server 3.0

Neural Applications Corp. reported it will customize its intelligent online ad targeting solution as a plug-in to Microsoft Site Server 3.0, Commerce Edition, currently in beta.

Microsoft Site Server Commerce Edition 3.0 will include an Ad Server for managing, scheduling, and serving online advertising. Coralville, IA-based Neural’s ad targeting technology was first deployed on Neural’s Stockpoint financial Web site last October, and resulted in a near-doubling of clickthrough rates, the company said.

Neural said its solution will be the only advanced ad targeting technology supported in Microsoft Site Server 3.0.

“Our intelligent technology enhances clickthrough performance while simplifying the administration of the ad server by always serving the best ads,” said Bill Staib, vice president, technology at Neural.

“But the implications don’t stop at online advertising. This same profiling and analysis technology can be applied to a broad range of services on the Internet, such as personalizing Web page navigation and optimizing product targeting for e-commerce applications.”

Based on neural networks, genetic algorithms, and fuzzy logic, Neural’s solution predicts demographic and behavioral profiles of Internet surfers while ensuring the visitors’ complete privacy.

The intelligent technology allows the system’s predictions to become more accurate over time as the software continues to analyze and “learn” from visitor behavior. The solution optimizes the effectiveness of specific ads by considering factors such as time of day, Web site page performance, and user profile information.