Kanoodle Pays for Cookie Distribution

In a twist on the ad network concept, Kanoodle has launched a program that will pay publishers to distribute Kanoodle's targeting cookies, whether they show Kanoodle ads on their site or not.

The BrightAds Cookies program aims to increase the relevance of the company's behaviorally targeted ads. By increasing the data it collects on viewers of its ads that visit publishers outside its own network, Kanoodle can target more relevant ads to those users when they visit a site that serves Kanoodle's BehaviorTarget ads.

"By distributing more cookies across our network, Kanoodle is better able to fulfill the promise of behavior targeting -- offering advertisers highly-targeted leads and serving the most relevant ads to consumers," said Doug Perlson, chief operating officer of Kanoodle.

When someone visits a site in Kanoodle's network, they download a cookie that assigns them to a behavioral segment based on that site's content. Behavioral segments match up with Kanoodle's 7,500 contextual ad categories

When that same user subsequently visits a site that serves Kanoodle's BehaviorTarget ads, Kanoodle can target ads to that user based on their past Web behavior, using the anonymous user profile stored in the cookie.

Publishers in the program will be paid five percent of the revenue earned when an ad served in Kanoodle's BehaviorTarget network is triggered by the cookie from that publisher's site. If more than one BehaviorTarget cookie is present, the most recent one is given precedence.

Kanoodle expects the program to be particularly attractive to small niche publishers with a targeted audience but limited pageviews, Perlson said. Since publishers do not have to serve Kanoodle's ads to participate, he also expects the program to appeal to sites with existing ad serving relationships, or to e-commerce sites that are wary of showing ads on their site that might distract users from completing a sale.

BrightAds Cookies uses controversial third-party cookies, which face a larger risk of deletion by users and anti-spyware vendors, according to analysts. The cookies Kanoodle uses expire after 30 days and are not used to collect any personally-identifiable information.

"Cookies are crucial to the success of Internet advertising. In general, there's nothing wrong with cookies," Perlson said. "Cookies have been, and will continue to be, an important factor in the availability of free, quality content on the Internet."

The company had explored a partnership with 24/7 Real Media in May 2004 to use its Insight XE analytics platform for behavioral targeting, but never launched a product using that technology, Perlson said.

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