Where have all the auto impressions gone?

Emily Riley | June 14, 2006, 02:32 PM

The web is not such a tiny world, although it is so fragmented that it I would call it a universe full of tiny worlds. Woe is the advertiser who tries to capture their target audience as they flit from world to world, with little regard for the advertisers who are chasing them.
On many of my recent briefings for my behavioral targeting report publishers claimed to solve that dilemma. Behavioral targeting allows advertisers to find their audience in out of the way places. You know, the whole reason to use BT in the first place.
But advertisers and agencies were shouting in my other ear that the impressions are already sold out. Not all of them of course, but the best ones for the best audience; auto buyers. The auto industry is perfect for BT. Buyers do a lot of research online, for a long time. So not surprisingly, auto advertisers have latched on to BT big time. So much so, those auto-researcher impressions leveraged across huge networks are already selling out, fast. The next few months might see increasing CPMs for this prime real estate. Auto advertisers might be able to take it, they are the biggest offline ad spenders out there. But the wise will layer strategies on top of their BT efforts like sequential messaging and geo-targeted promotions.
What BT impressions will be snapped up next? Mortgage buyers? Travelers?