Conceived in 2005 by Inventor and Pretarget Founder, Keith Pieper, the algorithm identifies where an Internet user is coming from (source) and where they are going (destination) by analyzing both historical and current visit behavioral data to identify user intent. Pretarget distills large amounts of click-stream data to a single keyword, which can be easily used for ad targeting.

“Pretarget was conceived to reach in-market users higher up in the purchase funnel – before they become explicit hand raisers for retargeting,” Inventor and Pretarget Founder Keith Pieper said. “This patent enables us to identify an in-market user before they visit an advertiser’s site. Pretargeting is designed to fuel retargeting”

Pretarget will use the patent to drive its proprietary targeting algorithms for display banner and pre-roll advertising. The patent is coupled with other pending patents to create custom Pretargeting behavioral segments for each campaign.

The natural evolution of this algorithm is its application to mobile advertising.  The newly patented technology is not reliant on browser cookies, which will allow better behavioral targeting on mobile devices.