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Behavioural. Behavourial targeting is one of the big opportunities provided by digital 

marketing. It involves assessing customers’ past actions in following links, reading content, 

using online services or buying products, and then follows up on these with a more 

relevant message based on the propensity to act based on the previous action.

Online options for behavioural targeting can be illustrated by a travel company such as 

lastminute.com:

● 

 Pay-  per-  click search engine marketing such as Google AdWords makes targeting 

possible according to the type of keyphrase typed when a potential customer searches 

for information. A relevant ad specific to a holiday destination the prospect is looking 

for, e.g. ‘Hotel New York’ can then be shown.

● 

Display advertising makes behavioural targeting possible since cookies can be used to 

track visitors across a site or between sites and display relevant ads. If a site user visits 

the travel section of a newspaper site, then the ad about lastminute.com can be served 

as they visit other content on this site, or potentially on other sites.

● 

Email marketing can be targeted based on customer preferences indicated by links 

they have clicked on. For example, if a user has clicked a link about a holiday in 

North America, then a targeted email can be delivered relevant to this product or 

promotion. More sophisticated analysis based on RFM analysis (Chapter 9) can also 

be used.

When reviewing the options for which variables to use to target, the campaign planner 

must keep in mind that the variables selected for targeting should be those which are most 

likely to influence the level of response for the campaign. Figure 8.15 indicates the general 

improvement in campaign response dependent on the type of targeting variables used. 

This approach is used by travel company Travelocity in their email marketing. Speaking 

at the 2006 Internet Retailing Forum they described how they concentrate their efforts on 

 behaviour suggesting purchase intent, i.e. when a visitor to their site clicks on a particular 

type of holiday, emails sent to the customer should be updated to reflect that.

Seybold (1999) identified five questions to help develop a  customer-  centric strategy for 

digital marketing (which are still relevant today; the questions apply equally to marketing). 

The questions are: