Analysts: Behavioural Targeting Has Finally Taken Off In Europe

It’s either an inexcusable invasion of privacy or a vital means of monetising content, depending on your side of the fence — but there’s no denying that behavioural targeting advertising is now being taken very seriously.

A new report from Forrester Research shows behavioural is growing fast in western Europe: just 10 percent of European companies Forrester surveyed in 2007 said they used targeting but that number grew to 26 percent in 2008, when the report says behavioural “finally took off” after years of reluctance from advertisers – 58 percent of advertisers surveyed say they are now interested in using behavioural ads in 2009.

The practice of tracking user behaviour is a touchy one for many web users who feel that behavioural trackers invade privacy. But the issue is bigger than controversial Phorm alone, as the report notes: “Advanced targeting has become standard in mainstream ad servers such as Google

Comments have been disabled for this post