213. Online Advertising › how it works › tracking note Targeting and optimising Privacy is a big deal, and Ad servers serve adverts across a number of websites, and can track a user the information collected visiting websites using cookies or IP addresses. is kept anonymous. Cookies are not only used This means that ad servers can offer advertisers: by websites for tracking. • Frequency capping: the ad server will limit the number of times a user Cookies also allow websites to “remember” sees the same advert in a session or time period. a visitor’s preferences, • Sequencing: the network can ensure that a user sees adverts in a such as language and particular order. location. Where a visitor • Exclusivity: ensure that adverts from direct competitors are not shown will not accept the cookie on the same page. from an advertising network, either by opting • Roadblocks: allowing an advertiser to own 100% of the advertising out or because their inventory on a page. browser deletes cookies, many ad servers will The ad server can also target adverts based on the business rules of the rely on the IP address of advertiser or based on the profiles of the users: the visitor to track which • Geo-Targeting: online advertising has the ability to target markets bywebsites are visited. Even though the information country, province or city, and can even drill them down to something as is anonymous, there are specific as their IP address. consumers who do not • Network / Browser Type: markets can further be targeted via networkslike having their browsing or browser types such as Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google habits analysed so that Chrome and Apple Safari. better advertising can be served to them. • Connection Type: users can be segmented and targeted according to their Internet connection type, e.g. whether they use broadband or dial up connections. • Day and Time: advertisers can choose the time of day or day of the week when their adverts are shown. Advertisers can specify when their campaign should air, down to the minute. This usually depends on the client’s objective for the campaign or the product itself. • Social Serving: websites gather demographic data about users and then serve each user with targeted and relevant advertising. For example, Facebook will allow advertisers to select specific characteristics of users who will be shown an advert. • Behavioural Targeting: the ad server uses the profile of a user (built up over previous websites visited) to determine which adverts to show during a given visit. Ad servers can base this profile on cookies or on IP addresses. For example, the ad server may choose to show adverts for pet insurance on a news page to a user who has visited the pets and animals section of a general media site previously. Another way of behavioural targeting is to set up parameters to determine when a certain advert needs to be shown. For example: if the user has clicked on a banner advertising a test drive, and the user actually booked the test drive, the next time they see an advert from the advertiser, a different advert will be shown because the user already responded to the previous advert.210