MySpace beta testing ad targeting program

According to a recent interview with News Corp.’s chief revenue officer, MySpace has been beta testing an ad targeting program that they intend to go public with, albeit on a limited scale, next week.

by Helen Leggatt

MySpace will soon be able to offer marketers a much more targeted approach to advertising on their social network. In a recent interview with Silicon Alley Insider’s Peter Kafka, Mike Barrett, News Corp.’s chief revenue officer, said that the ad targeting program was still in beta with 11 behavior segments including auto, lifestyle, beauty and health.

“Within the next week or so we'll take it public, probably on a limited charter basis so we can learn a little bit more,” said Barrett in the interview. “By October or November we'll have broken these 11 segments into 100 segments. So you can target people who are not just interested in beauty, but makeup. Or people not just interested in travel, but safari travel. Being able to break down the segments even more finely will add more value to marketers.”

Ad targeting spending will continue to grow, said a recent eMarketer report. By 2008 they estimate it will have peaked at nearly 74 percent due to contributing factors such as greater advertiser acceptance, an increase in online spending (partly brought about by the Olympics and U.S. elections) and greater publisher support.

The use of ad targeting is set to continue rising. Revenue Science's Bill Grossman said that by 2011, “very large publishers will be selling 30 percent to 50 percent of their ad inventory using this technique,” said Revenue Science’s CEO, Bill Gossman (via eMarketer).