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A new study conducted by Synovate for Vendare asks consumers how they like to be targeted.

In a study that asked adult consumers what type of targeted online ad they are likely to respond to (read: click on), 62 percent cited contextual-- ("a subject of particular interest to you"). That's more than twice the number who said they are likely to respond to demographic criteria (28 percent-- "a specific group you may be a member of"). Just 24 percent of those surveyed said they respond most to geographic targeting ("businesses in your local community"), and 18 percent said they were most apt to respond to behavioral targeting (ads based on "your past behavior on a given website").

Fully one-third of respondents weren't sure or had no opinion on what method moves them most.

Vendare, the ad network that commissioned the national study of 1,000 adults, concludes from the results that subject matter matters most in online advertising. "When you present advertising on top-of-mind topics, consumers respond," says Lynn D'Alessandro, vice president, sales, for Vendare Media's Traffic Marketplace. "Contextual advertising matches your messaging with pages on related topics, and you can't really get any more relevant than that."

Anand Subramanian, CEO of ContextWeb, agrees: "Contextual targeting multiplies the opportunity for advertisers to communicate with the user by messaging different offers to the same user at different times. There are only so many online users, but there is infinite number of online user interests or mindsets. A typical online user may look at more than 10 to 15 different types of content in any given day."

On the other hand, he says, "Behavioral scales with unique users. There are only so many online users making it supply gated, and can therefore only grow as much as the online user community grows. As online advertising gets bigger, behavioral's share of the overall online ad spend will shrink."

That's not to say that other targeting methods should be dismissed, including behavioral. Based on other results that show responses to various types of targeting vary by age groups, economic status and ethnicity, Vendare believes that a mixture of targeting practices is the smartest strategy.

For example, the research shows that those with annual household incomes above $75,000 and those with post-graduate degrees are roughly twice as likely to respond to demographic, geographic and behavioral targeting as their counterparts at the bottom income and educational levels. And women are slightly more likely to respond to contextual targeting than men (63 percent to 60 percent).

Among other findings of note:
- Response to contextual targeting varies according to racial makeup: 72 percent of nonwhites respond to relevant subject matter, against 60 percent of whites.
- Those employed part time are significantly more likely to respond to demographic targeting than those in any other employment category (by as much as a 15-point margin).
- Demographic targeting is nearly twice as important to those in the 35 to 44 age bracket as to those ages 18 to 24.
- Geographic/local targeting is second only to contextual among those in the West, while demographic targeting is relatively more appealing among those in the Northeast, the Midwest and the South.
- Behavioral targeting was three times more popular among the 35 to 44 age group than with the 18 to 24 crowd.

"Targeting isn't an either/or decision, so it's best to mix and match targeting tactics-- especially when it comes to educated, prosperous consumers who simply won't respond to messages that aren't personally relevant," Vendare's D'Alessandro says. "If your messaging says 'we know what's on your mind,' plus 'we are you,' 'we are where you live,' and 'we are ready to handle your online needs,' you have four good shots at reaching your best customers."

A mix of targeting tactics does seem to be the best strategy. Preliminary results from a recent study conducted by Next Century Media for TACODA Systems suggests that contextual targeting should be used at the beginning of a campaign but that for subsequent frequency behavioral targeting should be used.

The Tacoda study used eye tracking to compare behavioral targeting to contextual targeting in terms of advertising awareness, branding measures and ROI.

Back to the Vendare study: "This study is interesting in how it takes into account a variety of online advertising solutions instead of focusing on just one," says ContextWeb's Subramanian. "Compared to other forms of online advertising such as search or behavioral, there have not been as many studies on the effects of contextual. I think this study is positive in its ability to look at how consumers view the technology from a user's perspective and draws on many different demographics to generate its responses."

Not everyone in the industry agrees with the study's methodology, however. Bill Harvey, founder of Next Century Media and an interactive media advisor to advertisers, agencies, entertainment and media companies, points out its flaws:

"Asking consumers directly to opine as advertising experts on their own proclivities is a mistake that the traditional media learned not to use decades ago when so taught by ARF, advertisers and agencies," Harvey says. "The reality is that consumers don't even know what behavioral targeting is (many in the industry still don't know) and that makes the consumers-as-experts error even more egregious in this instance.

"Consumers predictably always say that they prefer to be targeted based on their interests because it is obviously in their self-interest to say that. This kind of survey has been done before and nothing new is learned by this.

"The other judgment error here is the implicit assumption that clickthrough is the end-all and be-all whereas about nine out of 10 advertisers are looking for communications effects, a.k.a. branding."

Dave Morgan, CEO of Tacoda, a behavioral targeting network, agrees with Harvey's assessment. "There is a big difference between clicks and qualified audience," Morgan says. "While we have seen research that shows that behavioral can sometimes drive better response than contextual, we have seen the bigger differences when you look deeper at the quality of the users' responses. Behavioral does even better when you look at viewthroughs and conversions and, most importantly, brand metrics like engagement and favorability and purchase intent. We think that it is critical that our industry stop looking only at clicks. It is a misleading and superficial metric."

So what's the bottom line?

As with all studies, results should be taken with a grain of salt. Is there some relevancy to the findings? Of course. It's definitely helpful to know how consumers perceive they're being targeted to, and how they think they prefer to get their information.

Are there flaws to the methodology? Probably. There are always at least a dozen, if not hundreds, of ways to collect, decipher and analyze the data. But that's what provides us food for thought, and keeps us looking at the topics from many angles.

Last week, I participated in internal management training. It focused on a variety of corporate delights. In addition to learning about the importance of leadership, innovation, and strategic resource management, we also talked about the general psychology behind why people do what they do.

One point discussed was the difference between behavior and intent. That inevitably led me to think about behavioral targeting, as I found this differentiation extremely relevant to the topic of this column.

Behavior, as the "what exactly do you do?" consultant eloquently defined it, is a tangible act one can see. Reading is a behavior, as are eating, writing, and surfing the Web. Intent, however, is something that's not so visible. It represents the latent motive of an action.

This raised a few questions. Is there a difference between behavior and intent when it comes to behavioral targeting? If so, how many of the behaviors we track are truly representative of consumer intent, and how many are just mindless clicks?

If people mundanely perform a routine action, how much information do they really absorb and retain from the advertising messaging targeted to that behavior?

Do behaviors really convey intent, and at what point do they depreciate to mundane routines? Should marketers target intent rather than behavior?

I asked myself the bottom-line question: Is intent more important than behavior in the game of behavioral targeting?

Are You What You Do, or Do You Do What You Are?
We all have routine actions we perform regularly. For example, I walk four blocks every day to the office. Because this experience has become such a robotic routine, my behaviors (or lack of them) are rather limited. This habitual pilgrimage to work has become a mindless promenade. I'm unintentionally oblivious to the buildings and signage along this path.

Though behaviors are academically defined as actions or reactions of a person (or animal) in response to external or internal stimuli, I'd argue behaviors can be completely limited and dictated according to the stimuli provided. This means perhaps the reason consumers clicked on a banner or visited a site isn't because they intended so. Rather, perhaps their actions were "guided" and "encouraged" by the site navigation or the page layout.

If intent is the state mind at the time one carries out an action, does behavior linearly translate intents? It's important for marketers to differentiate intent-based behavior from routine-based behavior.

Maybe my daily walks have led to a state of complacency in which I no longer exhibit intent-based behavior but rather routine-based behavior. Whether advertising should have a disruptive quality is arguable, but I'm quite certain my intent each morning is to get to the office. It's unlikely I'd take any detours.

Beware the Digital Divide
Despite increasing broadband usage, a significant number of consumers are still on dial-up. This means though over half the U.S. population is downloading MP3s, watching film trailers, and using VOIP (define), plenty of other folks are still just checking e-mail, weather, and not much else.

The 2004 USC Annenberg study of consumer Internet behavior showed not only are behaviors different between light and heavy online users, there's a great digital divide between dial-up and broadband users. The research further suggests this inequality manifests a Web-experiential discrepancy for users. High-speed connections can exponentially increase functionality, usage, and online activity.

This is a critical consideration when it comes to planning a behaviorally targeted campaign. The digital divide may mean predetermined limitations restrict consumer behavior. It can create innate predispositions and prejudices leading to data inconsistency and possibly tainted results.

Before you write the laundry list of behaviors that define your target segment, be sure to discount behaviors that may be influenced by connection speed.

What Does This Mean for Online?
A recently released comScore study found 9 of 10 online searchers buy offline the products they searched. Though the findings didn't statistically link online search behavior with purchase intent (only 25 percent of searchers went on a make a purchase within 12 weeks of the initial search), it did reveal behaviors are manifestations of intent. Search is a visible action resulting from a purchase consideration.

Whether behavior implies intent is something I'll leave to behavioral psychologists. What's important for marketers is the need to recognize the difference between an intent-based and a routine-based action. Site navigation and layout can dictate and confine users to certain types of behavior.

Behaviors are fickle. They're subject to change. Once they become attitudes, they stabilize into characteristic, predictable predispositions. I'm not here to remind you of everything you learned in Psych 101. What I will say is before zealously adding behavioral targeting into the online marketing mix, make sure you clearly define objectives so you know what to track and monitor. And consider the macro elements that possibly influenced your target segment's behaviors.