The free report, "What Comes Before Search?" looks at how behavioral targeting works, the relationship between search and behavioral targeting, and the challenges associated with it.

eMarketer projects that by the end of next year, behavioral targeting will reach $934 million and will account for 8.3 percent of all online advertising spending - compared to $627 million and 6.9 percent projected for this year. The report also cites a recent study by Yankelovich Partners, which found that 65 percent of people in the U.S. now feel "constantly bombarded" by advertising messages, while 59 percent feel that advertisements have very little relevance to them.

What’s lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful communication with viable prospects regardless of their timing to buy. It’s not calling up every few months to find out if a prospect is “ready to buy yet?” Lead nurturing about building solid relationships with the right people.

[via B2B Lead Generation Blog]

Newsweek International: Pushing the Buy

Why is it that the Europeans get to have all the fun when it comes to Neuromarketing research?

Ford of Europe is researching "neuromarketing" techniques to better understand how consumers make emotional connections with their brands. DaimlerChrysler has funded several research projects at the University of Ulm in Germany, using brain-imaging technology to decode which purchasing choices go into buying a car. Firms like Oxford-based Neurosense have sprung up to make neuromarketing a bona fide business tool.

Since the 1950s, the best tool for identifying which ads and products people will like has been the focus group. The problem is, it's notoriously unreliable, largely because social dynamics get in the way of truthful answers. Some subjects want to please the focus-group leader. Others want to dominate the group. "Almost every focus group throws up someone more vocal and bossy, who either inspires others to follow or react against [them] or both," says Tim Ambler, senior fellow at London Business School. Perhaps that's why only one in 100 products survives in the marketplace after the typical product launch.

Neuromarketing - the emerging field of studying the brain to help advertisers tap into people's unarticulated needs, drives and desires, is being employed by Caltech and a Los Angeles marketing company to discern which movie trailers resonate most with potential moviegoers. While this technology is still in the lab, can't you just see the day when those little black bubbles that house store cameras also have neuromarketing sensors. Just like we use CTR metrics, among others, on email, to recognize patterns and shift our tactics toward those patterns, stores will be able to ascertain which displays evoke the right "purchasing thoughts" and spur buyers on the sales. From those numbers, they'll design better displays, Hollywood will make better trailers, and we'll all consumer like mad... OK..maybe that's a bit nuts, but as long as it's legal, marketer's will strive for it!