Analyzing Social Media's Role in Behavioral Targeting Strategies

This essay discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using social media information for behavioral targeting in marketing. The benefits include increased online traffic, better customer conversion rates, improved return on investment (ROI), and the ability to anticipate customer needs. However, the drawbacks involve potential invasion of privacy, high costs associated with data analysis, possible confusions due to misleading online behaviors, and erosion of customer trust. The essay concludes that businesses should carefully consider both the pros and cons before implementing social media-based behavioral targeting strategies.

Running head: BEHAVIOURAL TARGETING
Usage Social Media information for behavioral targeting of customer: A discussion of
the pros and cons of the issue.
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BEHAVIOURAL TARGETING
Introduction:
Behavioral targeting is a process of strategic marketing in which the target
customers/audience for the campaigns are selected based on their behavioral profiles that are
created based on information on their purchasing habits, browsing habits and social media
comments and activities. Since people spends a significant amount of time on social media
and share a lot of information about their views and preferences, social media provides
powerful information on which customer behavior can be profiled (Morey et al., 2015).
Controversy exists regarding the strategy of using social media information for
behavioral targeting. The following essay aims to discuss some of the pros and cons of the
strategy (Ozcelik & Varnali, 2019).
Discussion:
-Pros
Increases the number of views/clicks/online traffic
Through behavioral targeting, the number of views, clicks or online visits can be
improved by forwarding the advertising content based on their preferences, buying behavior
and lifestyle and therefore engage better with the customers. The personalized content of the
advertisements also helps to attract more patience of the customers and thus foster increased
number of views or clicks (Trusov et al., 2016).
Supports better conversion rate for customers
The increased network traffic, clicks and views can also lead to better conversion
rates of customers and thus create value for both the business and customers. By focusing on
the customer behavior and preferences in the campaigns, the chances of conversion are

2BEHAVIOURAL TARGETING
improved by offering products that the customer actually needs or intended to purchase
(Ozcelik & Varnali, 2019).
Improves Return on Investment (ROI)
Better conversion rates and retention of customer can further help to improve the
return On Investments (ROI) as the business is able to increase its customer reach and market
penetration through a more efficient and effective engagement with the customers (Chibba &
Cavoukian, 2015).
Anticipating the needs of the customers:
The customer’s behavior can be used to understand and therefore predict their needs
based on their social media activities, comments and uploads. This can help the businesses to
offer more appropriate products and services to the customers to suit their needs and also
make the service shorter and more efficient (Kurokawa et al., 2018).
-Cons
Invasion of privacy
One of the biggest cons of using social media information to create behavior profiles
of the customer is a breach of privacy of the customer since the social media activities of the
customers, such as the pages they visit, the comments they make on social media platforms,
the pictures and shares are considered to be personal and confidential (Chibba & Cavoukian,
2015).
Expensive:
Creating behavior profiles with social media data requires complicated information,
technology and analytical methods which can be very expensive and thus a major
disadvantage for smaller companies (Ozcelik & Varnali, 2019).

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Confusions:
Creating behavioral data solely on social media information about customers can also
be misleading and confusing for the companies especially when the customers show different
behaviors and opinions online than in real life (fake personality profiles) (Trusov et al.,
2016).
Erosion of trust:
Using personal information of the customer related to their preferences and behavior
can cause mistrust of the customers on the colonies due to personal security reasons and
therefore can cause erosion of trust on the company or business and can be another con of the
process (Chibba & Cavoukian, 2015; Moreyet al., 2015).
Conclusion:
Using social media information to create behavioral profiles of the customers can
offer both advantage as well as disadvantage for businesses and therefore should be carefully
considered before being used for behavioral targeting of the customers.

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References:
Chibba, M., & Cavoukian, A. (2015, December). Privacy, consumer trust and big data:
Privacy by design and the 3 C'S. In ITU Kaleidoscope: Trust in the Information
Society (K-2015), 2015 (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Kurokawa, M., Niu, H., Yonekawa, K., Kobayashi, A., Amagata, D., Maekawa, T., & Hara,
T. (2018, December). Virtual Touch-Point: Trans-Domain Behavioral Targeting via
Transfer Learning. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)
(pp. 4762-4767). IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/BigData.2018.8622072, URL:
10.1109/BigData.2018.8622072
Morey, T., Forbath, T., & Schoop, A. (2015). Customer data: Designing for transparency and
trust. Harvard Business Review, 93(5), 96-105.
Ozcelik, A. B., & Varnali, K. (2019). Effectiveness of online behavioral targeting: A
psychological perspective. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 33,
100819.
Trusov, M., Ma, L., & Jamal, Z. (2016). Crumbs of the cookie: User profiling in customer-
base analysis and behavioral targeting. Marketing Science, 35(3), 405-426. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2015.0956