Ad network Rocket Fuel announced success it has seen using intender data from consumer intent data exchange companies such as Blue Kai with results showing a “lowering cost per action and engagement metrics by an average of 43.75% versus other targeting methods.” Read the release.
Rocket Fuel President Richard Frankel discussed the findings and their implications.
AdExchanger.com: How does Rocket Fuel achieve scale with intent data?
RF: Rocket Fuel achieves scale in two ways. First, we aggregate data from
many third parties. Second, we use modeling techniques to project the
data we have onto large and scalable audiences.
For recent auto intender campaigns, you say in a release that “Using BlueKai data, Rocket Fuel achieved a 64% lower effective cost per action (eCPA) versus the second best performing targeting method.” What was the second best performing targeting method?
Rocket Fuel tests many different kinds of targeting, data, and combinations of data for every campaign. In this particular test, the second best performing targeting method was an autos contextual channel combined with a recency/frequency/demographic scoring function.
In your opinion, can ‘brand awareness” campaigns make use of intender data effectively?
One of the startling characteristics of data derived from online activity is that it is remarkably devoid of evaluative markers. For example, “autos interest” data may indicate curiosity, immediate purchase intent, enthusiast interest, or something else entirely. Attaching marketing value to an arbitrary set of data is what we try to do at Rocket Fuel, and that means connecting the data to a marketer’s particular objective. If a marketer is trying to drive brand awareness for a new model, then a wide variety of data could be useful, whether it’s data about in-market shopping activity for similar vehicles, or psychographic data related to likely use cases for that vehicle. Overall, we think that terms like “intender” are used very loosely in the business. The real question is — how can any particular data help a marketer achieve his/her goals? A brand goal like awareness is just another objective that online data can be used to reach.
Is valuation a challenge? How do you value intent data?
Online data is explicitly devoid of value — it just has some rough associations, and a price. Determining value of data — specifically in relation to a particular ad campaign and marketing objective — is what Rocket Fuel’s technology is designed to do. Like many worthwhile tasks, it’s challenging! Rocket Fuel uses a wide variety of proprietary techniques to determine that value.
By John Ebbert
