Here at AdExchanger, we love data. We tell you how brands are using it to target consumers and leverage programmatic buying. But beyond that, it can often be confusing just how marketers use all of the data collected throughout their entire marketing strategies.
So we decided to ask the data, analytics, and insights companies this question:
"What are some key use cases for how you work with clients?"
Click below or scroll down to read their responses:
As Apple finally shuts down its unique device identifier (UDID), tech companies are betting on ad targeting capabilities touted as privacy-friendly.
In describing their products, companies have moved away from the label “fingerprinting” technology, which was popular several years ago, and embraced terms like “device matching” and “mobile signature.” AdExchanger spoke with two active players in the ad targeting space, Adelphic Mobile and Drawbridge, for a snapshot look at the development of cross device ad targeting technologies.
Having the ability to reach a specific audience without getting entangled in privacy barriers has become increasingly important to marketers, according to Ray Colwell, CRO of Adelphic Mobile (Q&A, March 2012), a Waltham, MA-based mobile ad startup that provides solutions for both buy and sell-side customers.
Founded by former executives from Quattro (which Apple acquired and converted into its iAd program), the company offers a product dubbed the AudienceCube that analyzes data points to segment audiences and target ads by matching the groups to a database. Adelphic’s technology provides a “real-time mobile signature” that doesn’t identify individual users, Colwell told AdExchanger.
Marketers worldwide are pouring more money into digital ads, according to a new report from GroupM. Internet ad spending is expected to reach $113.5 billion worldwide this year, a 14.6% increase from last year and representing more than 21% of advertising budgets, reports the media buying agency, which polled marketers from 28 countries.
North America came in first with an estimated $42.8 billion in digital ad spend; followed by Asia-Pacific with $36.8 billion, and Western Europe with $26.6 billion.
Maybe the Interactive Advertising Bureau should have titled its Annual Leadership Meeting, "Data, Data Everywhere And Not A Terabyte To Think." This year's theme was how Big Data can complement or conflict with big advertising – i.e., creative ideas. The general takeaway was that yes, the two sides can inform and influence each other, but the industry still has a ways to go in matching brand thinking with programmatic tools. We asked a few executives on the second and final day to share some thoughts on what they talked about, heard and what they'll take with them on the way home or to the next meeting.
It has become de rigueur at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual conferences for executives to take to the stage for sessions that were half encouraging and half lecturing industry professionals for getting the science of digital marketing right, while not quite nailing down the art side of the equation. This year's IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Phoenix kicked off with a series of talks that highlighted the progress achieved and the issues that remain stubbornly elusive.
This year's theme, "Big Data & Big Ideas: Friends, Enemies, or Frenemies," showcased the problems of understanding the surfeit of data marketers, agencies and publishers are increasingly hard pressed to understand and deploy in the service of their advertising programs. As the first speaker, NY Times data guru Nate Silver told the gathering on Sunday, "We have an evolutionary instinct to see patterns, often we're seeing patterns in the noise," meaning that data is too often used to confirm existing ideas, not alter them. And that's where data in the service of creative can go a wrong.
That point was driven home during the Monday morning general session, when Jim Speros, Fidelity Investments' EVP/CMO, attempted to illustrate the issues marketers are wrestling with regarding the use of Big Data in the service of "big creative," saying, "Collecting too much data leads to chaos. What we really want is to organize it in a way that provides clarity." Easier said than done, he conceded, but an essential requirement if digital advertising is to evolve.
Persado, a new data-driven marketing software company spun out from Upstream Systems, raised $15 million in funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, the company announced this week.
Founded by CEO Alex Vratskides, Persado developed and sells “marketing persuasion technology,” which uses data and software to determine the most effective marketing messages for multi-channel digital marketing strategies.
“We live in a world where digital marketing is completely pervasive and all of this marketing uses language to try to persuade you as a consumer to do something,” Ethan Stock, SVP of business development and marketing for Persado, told AdExchanger. “The problem is that it’s difficult to come up with the language that works really well for all of these different ad channels. We came up with algorithmic methods to solve that problem.”
Persado started out as a division of Upstream Systems, a mobile marketing company that Vratskides also founded. Clients at Upstream were looking to improve the effectiveness of their mobile marketing messages and communicating in shorter messages. Clients of the new Persado include Skype, TIM Brail mobile operator, and social network Badoo.
2012 was good to Rocket Fuel, as the company benefitted from rising advertiser interest in retargeting and real time bidding. Oh, and it probably didn't hurt that the company was named an early partner on the Facebook Exchange, which has rapidly grown to a rumored 7 billion daily impressions.
During the year just ended Redwood City, CA-based Rocket Fuel hit $107 million in gross revenue, an increase of 238%, and it more than doubled its staff. Meanwhile the number of new advertisers grew 93%.
Among Rocket Fuel's innovations, says CEO George John, is the ability to balance contextual and social behavior to avoid wasting time and ad spend pursuing users who aren't interested no matter how many times they see an ad. “Thankfully marketers have become more serious about delivering quantifiable results through digital advertising and we have been here to really optimize those dollars spent," says CEO George John.
George John spoke with AdExchanger about the state of the company, customer demands, and future hiring goals, which include adding 300 people in 2013.
What do you think the growth numbers you are putting out today say about Rocket Fuel’s model?
GEORGE JOHN: We hope this means that we were right about everything -- that advertisers would be looking for more efficient results and listening to the numbers rather than following what they had been doing for years, both on and offline.
Jon Baron is CEO of tag management technology firm, TagMan. He recently spoke to AdExchanger about his business and industry trends.
AdExchanger: Tag management versus data management platforms (DMPs) - what do you see as the difference today? Is Tagman in the DMP space?
JON BARON: Whenever I talk to industry experts, they seem to have a slightly different view on it. My definition is that DMPs are a third-party audience aggregation tool. They do a good job of finding look-a-likes.
‘Tagging’ has always been about the data. We take the data that exists on behalf of the customer and what we’ve seen about the consumer journey -- and then power which vendor gets access at that moment in time to the web page or the mobile app page and so on.
The next thing we can do is fire off the right media segment pixel. We can fire off a Google Ad Exchange pixel or whichever segment pixel they want.
We also handle first-party data on behalf of the customer.
Why not add that third-party, look-a-like business?
For now, we feel that the world is just getting its head around what third-party data management is and how that relates to tag management, and why tag management data and real-time attribution go together like peanut butter and jelly.
As part of our year-end coverage, AdExchanger is publishing a variety of perspectives on a single question:
“What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?”
The below response is from Michael Lazerow, Chief Marketing Officer of Salesforce Marketing Cloud and CEO of Buddy Media. Buddy Media's sale to Salesforce.com in June was among the largest digital marketing acquisitions of 2012 and a validating moment for the New York startup scene.
"One of the main ideas that will shape our industry in 2013 is that we’re all marketers. Employees have voices, all divisions of a company have voices, and every company is a tech company. Really valuable data and insight will be pushed through to the furthest edges of the organization and as close to the customer as possible. Say someone walks into a Burberry store* -- the associates will know who they are based on data they have on their handhelds. Information such as a picture of that customer, his/her purchase history, and preferences enable the associate to engage with the customer so that it feels like a family store, like the corner bakery. Stores and businesses will have the ability to know who you are as a consumer and serve you better.
Consumers aren’t as worried about privacy issues and have started to embrace companies targeting them with ads and offers when those messages are relevant, according to Accenture Interactive. In fact, consumers now turn to mobile and personalized targeted offers and marketing elements while shopping and researching purchases.
After surveying 2,000 customers in the U.S. and U.K., Accenture Interactive found that 86% of respondents in those countries said they were worried about websites tracking their actions, but 85% of respondents also said they understood that it is a necessary tactic to properly target consumers.