A panel of distinguished digital marketing experts gave a troubling assessment of the current state of audience measurement at a recent conference put on by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, but it came as no surprise. The panelists were in agreement, but they all used different words to describe the dysfunction of interactive media's audience measurement: incomplete, disconnected, confusing, broken.
Every marketer would agree that understanding our audience enables us to create better campaigns and reach consumers with media that makes sense -- advertising media that is contextual and relevant to them. Advertising is at its best when media engages and becomes a branding vehicle, not just a direct marketing pitch measured by clicks. It is not enough to understand search behavior in a vacuum. We must be able to connect online search activities and keywords with offline behavior. The best targeting strategy is cohesive and reaches your audience wherever they are, across different media types, online and offline.
So how do we get there?
We already have all the data we need to measure the consumer audience. The problem is not the existence of the data. The problem resides in separate measurements for search, display, email, video, and mobile, creating what the panel calls "data smog." How we as an industry understand the data -- how we access it, incorporate it, and implement data insights into actionable intelligence -- has been a significant stumbling block for interactive.
If we pre-define success as suggested by the panel, then audience measurement would not vary so widely in our industry. Imagine the efficiency created by marketers using consistent standards and speaking in one language around data and measurement. Media planners and buyers would be relieved of the burden that comes with explaining data sets that most resemble a Tower of Babel to their clients.
In the last several years, our industry has been able to track consumer information regarding age, gender, and location. However, the best audience data is multi-dimensional, partly derived from consumer transactions. Consumer transactions encompass opens, clicks and conversions, not just mouse-overs and page views or impressions. If everyone used a transactions-based model, we would have a more accountable, defensible advertising model, which in turn would create more stability and more confidence in the fledging interactive industry.
The models that have been in use up to this point most resemble the proxy and panel-based models of broadcast and fail to represent the very thing that makes our industry different -- its interactivity. For even just this reason, the models fail to serve our industry's interests because they fail to accommodate its major differentiator when compared to other media.
Now combine the power of search targeting, opt-in email, and direct mail with a unified audience identifier.
Rather than tease out consumer information from the data smog, what if marketers could combine the power of direct market data with search, display, and mobile to indentify consumers by household information instead of the websites they frequent?
By assigning codes to generalized demographic data from direct mail, search, and mobile, we can measure audience by creating non-personally identifiable demographic information. Combining data sets with one standard means more accurate audience measurement.
This combination of transaction-based behavioral data paired with anonymous demographic consumer profiles lays the foundation for the next generation of interactive audience measurement. Over the last seven years, my company has developed deep anonymous data units and dozens of targeted display advertising categories and sub-categories. When we combine anonymous demographic criteria such as number of people in a household, estimated income range, and marital status, from a variety of sources like search, email, and direct mail, we can more accurately measure audience.
One of our clients, a national tourism agency, wanted to run a new advertising campaign and needed direction on campaign targeting. Drawing on transactional and anonymous demographics data from a variety of sources, we found that consumers who responded the best to the agency's advertising were single couples, with no children, incomes in the $100k range, and between the ages of 26 and 45. Better data means marketers can make business and creative suggestions with new data insights. With this information, the agency was better armed to target their future campaigns to consumers who would be the most receptive.
Importantly, this ideal consumer profile was developed not by team agency behavioral specialists sitting behind desks but from actual data. This kind of advanced targeting and measurement adds value to interactive media. Accurately identifying our audience is the first step to better engagement and brand connection. When we target any audience segment with more precision with three levels of behavioral response, transactional behavior, and anonymous demographic information, we get more conversions because we are accurately reaching our intended audience. As pointed out by the 4A's panel, not all media exposure is equal and not all measurements work. The best way to achieve unified audience measurement and enable us to begin speaking the same language across all interactive segments is with a unified audience identifier.
Scott Knoll is GM and VP of display media at Datran Media.
