ANALYSIS: Where's the ROI on Google, Microsoft's Investments on Targeting

Google has invested consistently on contextual targeting for over ten years. Microsoft and Yahoo have spent heavily to gain behavior targeting expertise. In February of this year, Google admitted weakness with selling ads on MySpace. Now, a Microsoft executive admits the same with Facebook. Both blame social networks.

March 12, 2008
The Facebook Factor: Declining CPMs

Social networks have flooded the market with inventory, pushing down ad rates based on CPM, according to one Microsoft executive.

Dean Carignan, Microsoft's director of ad business strategy in the entertainment and device division, made that disclosure during a panel discussion today at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in New York City.

Is it Social Networks? Or Non-Scalable Targeting?

Where's the ROI on targeting? Aside from the many anecdotal evidence of cute behavior targeting told by hundreds of AdNets, why have the companies with the largest research staff been unable to monetize targeting?

Is behavior targeting just another chapter of the old AI saga?