MediaPost | Data and Behavioral Insider

Targeting Musical Taste: Rihanna Fans Are Looking To Take A Cruise

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:25:40 -0500

I always knew I was a tech geek; I didn't need a new style of behavioral targeting to tell me that. I have a wife and daughter who are here to remind me of my "hopeless geekiness" pretty much at every opportunity. But who knew that my enjoyment of the music group Foster for the People would serve as a tip-off? According to the newly launched ToneMedia ad targeting company, people who search for this group and its lyrics (well, you try to decipher "Pumped Up Kicks" on your own) are 78% more likely than average to be IT decision-makers. Not only that, but if you are into John Lennon, you are 101% more likely to own a pet. Hmm. I am guilty on both counts. Maybe there is something to this.

eXelate Moves To Support CPGs With ZIP+4 Ad Targeting

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:05 -0500

Capturing product and category-level offline purchase data and tying it into online ad targeting to serve up display ads has not been easy. Google and others have been trying for years. But is ZIP+4 ad targeting the best the ad industry can do today? It gives advertisers the ability to pull in offline data based on ZIP codes plus the four-digit number that follows, narrowing down a user's geographic location.

Mobile App Privacy Needs To Grow Up And Shrink Down

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:29:00 -0500

The Mobile Marketing Association this week issued guidelines for app designers crafting privacy policies. This is sorely needed, but it only begins to address the larger issue of managing privacy issues on mobile. Many of the major mobile publishers have started including privacy policies in their apps of one sort or another. Nevertheless, the key challenge before everyone now is making the privacy policy relevant and usable by the mobile customer.

Salesforce's Data.com Looks To Expand Internationally

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:25:14 -0500

Data.com, a Salesforce.com company, will expand into Europe supported by an agreement announced Wednesday to make Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) data available to customers, Tricia Gellman, senior director of product marketing at Data.com, told MediaPost.

Thank You So Much For Tracking Me Relentlessly

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:21:03 -0500

Whenever digital advertising decides it is time to explain behavioral targeting and walk people through the opt-out process, I usually pop a few coffees first. I know there is a tough slog ahead. Consider Google's tortured, multi-tiered "Ads Preferences" site. Because of the extensiveness of the Google reach, it has to parse its explanations into search and Gmail targeting vs. Web targeting. Each category gets its own comfy-cozy we're-not- really-following-you videos and separate opt-out mechanisms.

Digesting 'Big Data' Shouldn't Produce Heartburn

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:45:35 -0500

Globally, businesses created 1.8 zettabytes of data in 2011, according to research firm IDC. Data gives marketers the ability to better understand the relationship between brands and human behavior, but many just can't fathom the enormity of the bits and bytes generated from emerging online media. Two white papers published this month try to put the concept into context.

Online Shoppers Check Out Holiday Retailer Performance

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:13:38 -0500

We know that American consumers shopped and bought online this holiday season in record numbers. But what did they think of the experience of gathering product information, evaluating alternatives and tapping that buy button? Personalization provider Baynote went straight to the consumers in a poll of over 1,000 online shoppers between Cyber Monday in late November and Christmas Eve to see how they said they were using and experiencing e-commerce, retailer sites, and tablets and mobile devices.

GENWI Combines Backend Data, Mobile Platform For Publishers

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:59:07 -0500

Mobile media should not adopt the inefficiencies of Web publishing,says PJ Gurumohan, CEO at GENWI, a cloud-based publishing platform for mobile devices. But there are hundreds of devices today that require a variety of file structures. And what happens when publishers have 20 versions and need to make a small change to an ad or content?

The iPad Made Me Skinny: Apps 'Change' Behavior

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:47:55 -0500

When it comes to technology and change, I am a skeptic and fairly conservative. I tend to disbelieve that technologies have a direct effect on habits and behaviors. I see something closer to a dialectic between technology and society. Gadgetry does not fall out of the sky and compel people to change their habits. The technology itself is invented in a given context where unmet needs and desires (you might call them "behaviors waiting to happen") inform the tools we create in the first place. We then interact with the technology, often take it in directions no one anticipated, and do as much to impose our own will and traditional needs onto the technology as it imposes new patterns on us.

Google And Others Invest In Israeli Companies

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:28:00 -0500

Semantic targeting ad company Peer39 has raised $2.5 million in venture capital funding from Evergreen Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and Dawntreaders Venture, reports Globes, the Israel business news publication. The funding contributes to the $30 million raised to date.

Your Site Is A Theme Park, And You Are The Tour Guide

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:24:54 -0500

"How do you get audiences to the places that matter most?" is an online publisher's main challenge, according to JumpTime CEO and co-founder Michele DiLorenzo. Most publishers continue to associate high CPMs with content value, but the premise of JumpTime's alternative model comes from economic theory, which understands the true worth of an asset as a combination of its current and future value. "If content is an asset in a network, that means every piece of content has two jobs: it delivers information but also exposes the user to other content and gets them to consume more content," DiLorenzo says.

The Mobile Buy Button Clicks In This Holiday

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:55:48 -0500

If there is one new consumer behavior that is going to drive change in digital marketing in 2012, it will be tapping the "Buy" button on a smartphone or tablet. The first part of the big story, told everywhere this season, is the mobilization of the shopping experience, with people leveraging the smartphone in-store and using the tablet as a catalog browsing device. The next piece is when real buying takes place from the phone, because that will activate even more of the money and effort that is already flowing into mobile. Once the phone or tablet actually becomes the point of sale, the rush to message to consumers and funnel them your way will be on.

Online Advertisers Drowning In Data

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:21:00 -0500

Vizu released a study Wednesday supporting the need for more collaboration throughout the online advertising industry, especially when it comes to metrics. Survey results showed that data overload continues to cause confusion and slow industry growth.

Born With An Eye Toward 2020: Tending The Xu of Data

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:39:00 -0500

It was a good week to catch up with Mike Baker, CEO of data management firm DataXu. After founding the firm a few years ago, Baker has built it into what Forrester this week said was among the top DSPs in a tight cluster of larger similarly rated firms, MediaMath and Turn.

Study Finds Google Wallet Could Leak Consumer Data

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:07:59 -0500

Consumers typically don't like the idea of being targeted by ads based on behavior because they believe it violates their privacy. But a recent study from security firm ViaForensics on Google Wallet, the electronic payment system, suggests consumers could have concerns other than just being followed around the Internet and being targeted with ads.

Will Trade Tracking For Deals, Consumers Signal

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:30:07 -0500

Consumers remain wary of behavioral tracking and want to maintain control of their data, but a new KPMG study suggests that digital users are also ready to cut a deal. The new research of Internet, mobile and cable users found 52% saying they would be willing to let their usage patterns -- and even their personal information -- be tracked by advertisers, if this resulted in free access to content or lower product costs. The study also shows that 43% are willing to receive advertising in exchange for lower fees of service.

As many privacy researchers have pointed out over the years in these studies, exactly how the questions are posed -- and which attitudes are measured -- can affect outcomes markedly. Consumers likely have a much nuanced sense of their own privacy and willingness to exchange their data for good or discounts. Metrics like these have limited utility once you realize how differently people feel about a range of categories and brands when it comes to privacy and data control. Length of relationship with a company, platform and even product category likely become variables in people’s willingness to make the data-for-value exchange with advertisers or publishers.

For instance, the equation changes when we move to mobile, where sensitivities about intrusiveness and data security escalate. So KPMG found ony 28% of respondents willing to trade receiving ad messages for lower fees on services. Not surprisingly, age affects these attitudes, with 35% of 16- to 34-year-olds willing to engage in this kind of value exchange, but only 21% of older adults.

What are people concerned about? On mobile phones especially, it is all about security, with 43% saying they are very concerned about having their credit card data intercepted, and 41% fearful of others accessing their personal information. But intrusiveness on mobile phones is also a key factor, with 40% saying they would be wary of a deal that rendered unsolicited messages.

It's worth noting KPMG’s finding that more organized and retail-centric channels of user feedback may be more effective than scraping the social networks. For instance, when asked what kinds of content most influences their decisions to buy, 46% of respondents cite manufacturer or store customer feedback, and 35% cite manufacturer Web sites. Social networks and blogs actually trailed the rest in terms of impact.

Online shopping has become a reflex, with 42% of young adults saying they do so every day, typically for an hour. That fact alone represents a massive opportunity for data providers to demonstrate their value. If people are dedicating that much time to shopping online, then they are sophisticated searchers who understand the value of streamlining the process.

Marketers should be able to make transparent and clear offers to exchange discounts, recommendations and access for consumer data. It seems to me this is a point at which transparency pays much better than subterfuge. Consumers who are ritualizing online shopping are in the best position to understand the ways in which the data exchange can help them. An educated consumer may be data’s best customer.

KPMG’s Consumers & Convergence study polled 9,600 consumers worldwide and several hundred in the U.S.

Social Signals Create The Next Version Of Behavioral Targeting

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:26:58 -0500

Gurbaksh Chahal believes he's created the next version of behavioral targeting. His company RadiumOne recently launched the social sharing platform Po.st to increase targeting and yield based on content being shared.

The Personalization Challenge In Gift-Giving Season

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:36:00 -0500

Sometimes you really wish some Web sites would forget who you are. Several years ago I got my mother-in-law a novel by a mystery writer who set her fictional world among knitting hobbyists. It was one of those lame efforts to be relevant in my gift giving. She is a knitter, likes mysteries, and I happened to hear mention of a series that combined both worlds. Of course, for years after this, Amazon thought I was a lover of knitting and this particular novelist, so all of my recommendations from the retailer usually had some of these sorts of items in the mix. 'Tis the season for recommendation engines to become mightily confused about the true tastes of online orderers.

Omnicom's Annalect Will Merge Offline And Online Data

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:35:00 -0500

With Annalect, Omnicom Media Group is quietly rolling out a strategy identifying propensity and buying signals from non-digital channels combined with digital signals to create a more complete audience targeting ad profile.

The New Mobile Reflex

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:23:02 -0500

There are many question marks that remain around consumer behavior this holiday shopping season. How much will we really spend during this fourth holiday in a row of economic fear and uncertainty? When will spending kick in during this cycle -- an early, drawn-out spend or a last-minute burst? How much will go online and how much will stay at bricks and mortar? And it goes on. One thing is certain this holiday, however. Mobility is about to have a profound effect on the entire retail shopping model. It's hard to imagine more of a disruption to the brick-and-mortar world than what smartphones have done: dropped the Internet into Aisle 3.

Online Ad Targeting Will Aid Political Agendas

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:17:00 -0500

Ramping up for the 2012 U.S. elections, Pandora became the latest Internet publisher to announce it will begin accepting political ads. The streaming Internet music service follows in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter. The targeted local and national personalized ads will be served to voters during the audio breaks based on their ZIP code entered at registration.

Pet-Owning Vitamin-Poppers Want Their iPads

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:00:03 -0500

Long before "Freakonomics" revealed to a larger audience just how fascinating sports data diving can be, behavioral marketers were already expert at finding curious affinities in the data they were assembling. In fact, I remember that in the early days of Tacoda and Revenue Science's evolution, they leveraged their infamous "black boxes" as audience discovery engines. In the process of targeting specific segments in their early campaigns they were also finding that unexpected segments of consumers were responding especially well to the messaging. And so one of the value propositions of behavioral targeting soon became its ability to ferret out new potential markets for a product.

Will comScore Data Validation Help Calm Advertisers' Fears?

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:35:15 -0500

comScore has begun to validate eXelate's audience intent data. Measuring the audience segments mean comScore compares the data to its panel and score it according to a five-point rating scale based on the accuracy of a brand's targeting assignments. A five-point score represents 85% to 100% audience accuracy.

Apple of Our Eye: iPhone/iPad Win Staring Contests

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:53:03 -0500

I am a sucker for a good eye-tracking study. Give me a heat map showing what and in what order and for how long people look at items on a screen, and I see a window into a mode of behavior that almost always reveals something of value. "Eyes don't lie," quips Jeff Bander, Senior Vice President, Client Relations, EyeTrackshop. Understandably, that is the adage that reigns over a metrics group devoted to the value of the gaze. They have pioneered a cheap and highly scalable way to conduct eye-tracking studies with hundreds of people from their own desks using simple Webcams. This is the kind of work that can be invaluable in determining things like the effectiveness of Web site design or ad creative.

Behavioral Targeting Requires Data, Lots Of It

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:23:03 -0500

Marketing strategies built on consumer behavior requires data to support targeting decisions. But a study led by Lauren Freedman and e-commerce consultancy e-tailing group reveals just 8% of the 110 retail marketer surveyed plan to spend more on retargeting and behavioral targeting services during the holiday season and into 2012.

At FT, High-Tech Finally Starts to Simplify and Clarify Data

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:32:00 -0400

The high-tech systems that have been adding layers of data and real-time operations to the publishing and advertising markets in recent years also cake on additional costs and a comic level of complexity. Media buying has become so complex and algorithmic that agencies are looking for math majors. Executives wonder where the money is going as each new tech piece adds to the CPM. The problem is acute for a publisher like Financial Times, where a complex metered access model has to serve un-registered, registered and paid members differently, and those interactions render mountains of demo, behavioral and ad performance information.

Simpli.fi Speeds Up Targeting

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:20:03 -0400

On Wednesday, Simpli.fi CEO Frost Prioleau said the company will begin to target consumers on real-time bidding inventory per impression immediately after a search. He said early tests show this feature provides four to 10 times the conversions created by traditional 30-day search retargeting. The company also will provide reports, so advertisers can see exactly how their search retargeting campaigns perform throughout the process.

LiveIntent Brings Real Time To The Inbox

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:02:15 -0400

Email marketing company LiveIntent CEO Matt Keiser says that he has been dreaming of the day he could serve highly targeted ads dynamically in real time into emails since he founded his previous email company Datran many years ago, but the technological limitations hampered him. He wanted email ad units to behave with the same kind of flexibility as networked Web advertising. He learned that the absence of reliable cookies or Javascript in the platform limited his ability to do the kind of real-time ad serving that could recognize and respond to parameters like place, date and time. With LiveIntent, however Keiser, along with fellow ex-Datran executive COO Dave Hendricks, claim to have cracked the code on delivering ads that recognize user context more precisely and can optimize campaigns on the fly based on the responsiveness of recent recipients.

JAGTAG Co-Founders File Mobile Targeting Patent

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:06:03 -0400

Dudley Fitzpatrick, along with JAGTAG co-founder Jason Alan Snyder, updated a U.S. patent application this month filed in June 2011 for "Apparatuses, Methods And Systems For Anticipatory Information Querying And Serving On Mobile Devices Based On Profiles." The application describes a method to use a code-triggered information server to serve content, demographics and behavior-targeted information to users via mobile devices.

Digital Benefits From Shifts in Holiday Shopping Behaviors

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:38:02 -0400

Cash-strapped, house-poor, expecting a double dip, American consumers are facing the holiday shopping season with some dread this year. According to a new survey by SteelHouse, which retargets shoppers based on shopping personalities as well as buying behaviors, 82% of us say we will change our shopping behaviors this season. Half of us will do comparison shopping more often and 62% say we will spend less overall. But the key beneficiaries of our cash crunch is digital media.