TARGUSinfo Brings Predictive Targeting To Ads

TARGUSinfo, a company rich in consumer data, will begin offering a predictive targeting ad offering designed to match a Web site visitor with the most relevant ads.

The company’s product, called AdAdvisor, marries its offline and online data. In its 15-year history, services to clients have ranged from aggregrating data such as records from customer loyalty programs and call centers to identifying consumers at different points of transactions, including in-store, catalog, phone, and online. Today TARGUSinfo provides callerID services to telecom providers including many VoIP (define) services. Over the past few years, the company transitioned to online services by providing lead verification. Like lead generation, verification identifies perspective customers by confirming contact information based on comparing collected and provided data.

“We have about 300 clients in lead verification. The next logical step was in display, optimizing the experience,” said David Helmreich, VP of business development in interactive markets at TARGUSinfo.

Through its relationship with its partners such as lead generators, TARGUSinfo executives say they are able to identify and place users in anonymous segments with millions of other people who share those attributes. “After a cookie is placed on the user, each time that user visits a site on the ad network or publisher website, a more predictive display advertisement can be served based on what targeted AdAdvisor segment they choose,” a TARGUSinfo spokesman said in a follow up e-mail.*

AdAdvisor launched yesterday at Omma Behavioral. Marketing Conference. It was initially announced in late January and was beta tested with a number of advertisers. AdAdvisor is sold to advertisers where ads run on ad networks and publisher sites. TARGUSInfo did not make advertisers testing the service known. Customers of the company include Jenny Craig, Starz, Ticketmaster, Budget, AT&T, Domino’s Pizza, GE, HBO, and Showtime.

*This story has been updated to clarify how the AdAdvisor service works.