Phorm - new UK Internet advertising initiative

Fused Nation are reporting today that last month UK media company, Phorm, released details of an Internet advertising venture with BT, Virginmedia and Carphone Warehouse.

The deal allows Phorm to use data from the ISPs to target adverts to their users based on their browsing history.

>From Fused Nation:

That opens up a world of options for advertisers - instead of customising a few campaigns with vague targeting on Adwords, you can customise entire campaigns to target users at different stages of the decision making process.  Frequent browsing could equate to a greater intent to buy - therefore you can target your juicy sales pages to these people.  On the other hand, infrequent browsing could indicate an interest in a new area, allowing you to target more subtle, informational pages at potentially new customers.

It also means we could target different types of customers who are looking for the same service.  A potential new client with no previous SEO services and an existing client of a competitor looking to change supplier could very well browse different types of sites, looking for different types of information - why not tailor campaigns specifically to each customer type?

This could be an interesting option for marketing professionals in the UK (and perhaps worldwide soon). 

For the time being, Phorm look to be accepting website publishers with high traffic volumes (500k - 1 million minimum per month), so the virtual real estate you would advertise on may tend towards being high traffic / generic.  But with campaign specifc ads targeted directly to reasonably well qualified leads (”reasonably well” in terms of Internet marketing), then this could be a great way for traditional marketeers to make their mark in the Internet advertising industry.