Peerset launches ad targeting tool

Peerset CEO Mike John-Baptiste, aka JB, says his team has spent three years working on the company’s technology, which is designed to find extra ad targets by mapping Web surfers’ interests. JB throws around terms like “social psychographic targeting,” which I think he’ll learn scares the hell out of journalists, let alone ad buyers. Seriously, nice round Web 2.0 names like “Advertisr” do better than words like “sociographic” these days.

Here’s the easy version: Peerset’s Google-enhancer lets advertisers find matching interests among Google users without needing to match exact words in search terms. Advertisers get to find and advertise to people interested in their brand. The chart below shows an example of how this works. Click it for full size. In this example, a user who expresses interest in Gray’s Anatomy, John Mayer, and iPods gets served a Starbucks ad. He’s been identified by his interests as having another likely interest, even if he’s never mentioned anything about the brand.

Founded in 2005, Peerset is a privately funded, privately held company based in San Francisco and Toronto.

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