Marketers face a number of obstacles when trying to meet the golden rule of reaching the right person with the right message at the right time. Data quality, attribution, consumer behavior and context now all play a role in creating the nuanced data-driven models. We asked the sponsors of the Adweek Audience Targeting Guide to share their insights into what brands and advertisers need to do to target their campaigns effectively and evaluate their success.
Here are highlights of what they had to say (and click on the links to read their complete articles):
Do Cross-Screen the Right Way
“Entertainment, quite literally, is in the palm of your hand. Which, of course, means advertising should be there too. Effective cross-screen advertising is all about being relevant, using ad formats, messaging and contextual creative that speaks to the consumer’s unique needs. There’s a lot of potential here, but plenty of confusion as well.”
—Rick Welday, President, AT&T AdWorks
Effective Targeting Depends on Quality Data
“Many marketers struggle to understand the fidelity of the data they are purchasing or collecting. A standard line of questions has evolved to help them get a handle on this: What’s the quality level of the places data? How do you filter out inaccurate or misrepresentative device coordinate data? How do you determine if a device is actually at a place versus just walking or driving by? How much of your data is foreground versus background?”
—Bill Michels, SVP, Product and Partnerships, Factual
Apps Are Key to Mobile Targeting
“Fewer Americans than ever are reachable via traditional TV. With such fragmented viewership across broadcast and cable, and unreliable measures of return on ad spend, it is difficult for advertisers and their agencies to continue to justify such high-cost media expenditures. For CPG advertisers, though, shifting dollars from TV to digital remains risky, as digital buys are still predominantly desktop-focused. Mobile must be incorporated more heavily, given the amount of time consumers are spending on their smartphones.”
—Mike Dadlani, VP of Media & Data Partnerships, Ibotta
Freedom of Choice in the Alternative Data Landscape
“To craft effective data-driven marketing campaigns, it’s time for advertisers to turn to alternative data sources. Perpetual identifiers such as clickstream data show a longer view of a person’s shopping, purchase and cross-site decision-making behavior. This kind of data is essential for all verticals, but is especially valuable for longer purchase cycles, including travel, automobiles or luxury retail items.”
—Deren Baker, CEO, Jumpshot
Why Multi-Faceted Identity Matters
“Mobile device IDs can offer a lot of insight, as they are typically associated with a single person and much less prone to fraud than cookies. Even so, they’re not enough. Marketers need to be able to link these identifiers with email addresses, social IDs and more in order to recognize a user across all channels, screens and journey stages. That means they need to forget about ‘golden records’ and focus their efforts on a portfolio-led approach.”
—David Spitz, CMO, mParticle
Avoid the Bull When Shopping for Data
“Big data is big business. As more and more data providers strive to feed the growing demand for deep audience insights, the quality of the data being offered can drop off dramatically. It is no secret that selling data is a volume-based business. Data providers that are only after high volume and lack quality control standards should be avoided. Even good-quality data can lead you astray if it’s misinterpreted.”
—Douglas S. Egeth, COO, Webbula
