Media fragmentation is the ultimate paradox.
There are more places than ever to reach an audience, but it has become increasingly difficult to grab their attention.
And when attention is so divided, it’s hard to “feel confident that you’re reaching the right customer at the right time,” said Andrea Steele, director of media and marketing for home warranty company American Home Shield (AHS). People are also less likely to convert when attention spans are shorter, she added – a plight we can likely all relate to.
In short, AHS needed to revamp its targeting strategy for a new era.
AHS’ direct mail team had been working with Experian for more than 20 years, and also with data activation platform Audigent for the past several. In late 2024, Experian acquired Audigent, allowing AHS to tap into enriched data across both companies to improve its audience segmentation and targeting.
Finding your target
At a high level, AHS knew it needed to reach people who were in market for home warranties. But determining who those people are required behavioral and contextual insights that AHS didn’t have on its own, Steele said.
Audigent uses its internal data sets to link high-performing traits with specific consumer profiles, which are then used to build curated deals, said Greg Williams, COO for marketing services at Experian.
For instance, people embarking on DIY home projects or in market to buy a new house are likely to also be shopping for a home warranty, said Williams. Audigent looks at its first-party data sets to find people who have recently visited moving-related or home-project websites.
And because it’s now owned by Experian, Audigent can also see purchase behavior that may indicate moving or home-repair plans (e.g., a receipt for moving boxes or five recent trips to The Home Depot).
Once a campaign is live, SSPs send consumer data signals to Audigent suggesting interests and traits that seem to correlate highly with each other. Audigent then uses those signals to develop curated deals that DSPs can bid on. Both sides are constantly learning from each other, said Williams: DSPs can see what kinds of profiles and traits make up a cohesive audience, and SSPs can track which deals are performing best and which need to be adjusted.
Each time marketers put a message in front of customers, said Williams, they can take insights from another impression that “just happened” and make adjustments and decisions along the way.
Why real time matters
The access to real-time results has improved AHS’ understanding of its audience and changed the way it optimizes campaigns mid-flight.
In the past, AHS would wait until the end of a campaign to analyze performance and tweak its targeting, said Steele. The company would make some optimizations in real time, she added, like adjusting bids, but not at the audience level.
Over the last year, AHS saw an 18% increase in overall cost-per-action efficiency by getting its message in front of more relevant audiences and being able to revise its targeting strategy on the fly. The biggest improvements were in display and streaming audio, said Steele.
Cost efficiency for online video actually decreased compared to historical benchmarks, but still drove “higher-quality consumer responses,” according to AHS. Which is just a fancy way of saying that you have to spend more to drive “higher-value leads” from “higher-quality properties,” Williams said.
It makes intuitive sense that content targeting specific segments outperforms broader messaging, because it’s more personalized, said Steele. In a fragmented media landscape, that kind of precision is the only way to stay relevant.
The results weren’t a surprise, she added, but rather a confirmation of this new approach.
