We spoke with industry leaders from Ampersand, Basis Technologies, Captify, Cuebiq, CvE, Fetch, Madhive, MiQ, and Samsung to gather insights on how innovations in data and identity are creating stronger consumer connections.
Here are five key insights to consider.
1. Build on trust with first-party data
Stricter privacy regulations and growing customer expectations mean businesses must rethink how they gather and use data. A robust first-party data strategy centers on gathering high-quality data, such as behavioral and transactional data. By using behavioral, lifestyle, and purchasing data, brands can craft personalized strategies that align with their goals. This approach balances effective targeting with building trust and complying with privacy rules.
Integrating identity solutions like Unified I.D. 2.0 (UID2) and ID5 into existing data strategies improves interoperability across platforms while keeping user privacy intact. These tools help create more effective campaigns.
“We’ve been preparing and leaning into educating our clients around the value of first-party data. These are very important and primary considerations in any of our campaigns.”
April Weeks, Basis Technologies
2. Align metrics with business goals
To demonstrate clear value, campaigns need to tie their outcomes to broader goals. Relying only on click-through rates or CPMs won’t cut it. Metrics that measure meaningful results, like driving sales or increasing customer retention, provide greater transparency than surface level data, like clicks or impressions.
A continuous feedback loop between targeting and measurement ensures campaigns can be refined to better align with business objectives. This feedback helps marketers understand who they are targeting and how those audiences are driving key business results. Shifting focus to metrics that resonate with stakeholders ensures that marketing efforts are evaluated based on their true contribution to the company’s objectives.
“The television industry has access to more data than ever before, and at Samsung Ads, our ACR technology helps us provide valuable insights about what content and ads are being viewed. This abundance of data enables us to support clients in aligning their campaigns with business objectives effectively.”
Justin Evans, Samsung Ads
3. Personalize experiences to boost engagement
Personalization drives stronger customer relationships by delivering tailored experiences to individual customer needs. Using data-driven insights to fine-tune offers and messaging makes interactions more relevant, strengthening brand loyalty. Combining behavioral, lifestyle, and transactional data provides a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey and ensures each touchpoint feels personal.
Testing and iterating on personalization strategies also helps identify which data and approaches yield the best results. Scaling these efforts means customers receive the right messaging at the right time, and businesses see better outcomes.
“Every business should be building a data strategy that thinks about the different versions of data that exist and how they bring that together. They don’t necessarily need to own all of it but have a clear rationale and strategy about where you’re using which data sets.”
Paul Frampton, CvE
4. Utilize advanced measurement tools for smarter decisions
Improving the effectiveness of campaigns starts with using sophisticated measurement tools to gain actionable insights. Using analytics like brand lift studies, foot traffic analysis, app download tracking, incrementality, and share of search allows marketers to understand the full impact of their efforts.
With these resources, teams can pinpoint what’s working, make real-time adjustments, and refine their approach. This adaptability ensures budgets are used as effectively as possible.
“We are playing a leading role in democratizing new tools for local advertisers. By mimicking the marketing funnel mentality, we’ve introduced solutions ranging from measuring brand lift to tracking foot traffic and app downloads.”
Luc Dumont, Madhive
5. Adapt quickly to stay competitive
The only constant in advertising is change. Adapting quickly to new technologies and consumer behaviors keeps businesses competitive. A culture of agility fosters innovation, making it easier to respond to industry shifts and discover new opportunities.
Companies that anticipate change and invest in modern data solutions position themselves for long-term growth. Whether it’s adjusting to privacy updates, exploring emerging tech, or staying flexible, businesses must continuously invest in adapting their platforms and strategies.
“Falling behind is not really an option. There’s always a change in advertising and in data where there’s a new horizon. The people who stay close to that and innovate will always follow it.”
Amelia Waddington, Captify
Shaping the future
Building meaningful consumer connections requires advertisers to combine robust data strategies with flexibility and innovation. By focusing on these five considerations, marketers can adapt to today’s challenges while preparing for what’s ahead.
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by AdExchanger // Friday, March 15th, 2019 – 12:06 am “Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today's column is written by Preethy Vaidyanathan, chief product officer at Tapad, a part of Experian For years marketers asked, “How do we get more data?” Now that they've mastered data mining, marketers want to know what’s next. The time has come for organizations to make their abundance of digital data actionable, increase ROI and reach consumers with consistent, personalized experiences across all touchpoints. A seamless consumer experience can only be achieved by consolidating digital data. Organizations, however, are finding that consolidating data silos is more time-consuming and complicated than initially expected. The challenges One of the most pervasive obstacles companies face in when consolidating data is adopting inefficient and costly tactics that quickly become outdated. For instance, over the last couple of years, many companies turned to enterprise data warehouses to consolidate data silos, but some were too expensive or poorly suited for raw, unstructured and semi-structured data. This led companies to adopt data management initiatives, which bogged down many enterprises. Perception among senior level executives is another challenge. Many still question the need for digital transformation – achieving greater efficiencies through updating business and organizational processes with new technologies. Gartner found that more than half (54%) of senior executives say their digital business objective is transformational, while 46% say their objective is optimization. Digital transformation and data consolidation require time and effort. So, many large organizations work to overcome data silos as part of a multiyear digital transformation versus an immediate action item, delaying the benefits the company sees from taking on this project. All of these challenges make delaying progress in data consolidation easy, but companies should remember the impetus for doing so: creating a seamless customer experience that, in turn, drives business results. Brands with higher quality customer experience grow revenue faster than direct competitors with lower quality customer experience. The approach Many brands go into the digital transformation process assuming they have massive amounts of customer data, and that much of it is valuable or will be in the future. They might spend months aggregating that data in data stores or data lakes – at great expense. The trouble is that their data was scattered across multiple databases, which means it’s highly fragmented. As a result of this fragmentation, marketers can’t activate their data in ways that enhance the customer experience. To do so, companies must ensure their digital data is highly flexible so it can provide a holistic view of the consumer journey across every digital, in-store, in-venue and offline channel. I’d recommend that organizations taking on data centralization initiatives prioritize use cases that offer the company the greatest benefit. This is where organizations should establish a “crawl, walk, run” approach to data centralization to ensure key executives buy into the process. Starting with a subset of use cases, such as customer retention or upsell, or with a campaign, which is an even smaller starting point, allows executives to see the benefits of data consolidation projects relatively quickly. Once they validate these initial benefits, they can expand the range of use cases or campaigns, as well as the marketing ROI for their business. While data centralization is a long-term project that may take several years to complete, it doesn’t mean a business can’t get started now and see measurable results quickly. Break down data consolidation into stages so the organization can experience wins along the way. At the end of the day, data consolidation will help organizations deliver more effective marketing campaigns that drive business growth. Follow Experian Marketing Services (@ExperianMktg_US) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter. Contact us today!
Tapad's technology enhances Bidtellect clients frequency capping and audience extension capabilities cross device. NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian, is a global marketing technology company and leader in digital identity resolution solutions, today announced a new partnership with Bidtellect, a leading native Demand-Side Platform (DSP). Bidtellect's paid content distribution platform will leverage The Tapad Graph™ as its first cross-device partner. The integration will offer Bidtellect's clients in the U.S. and Canada cross-device frequency capping and enhanced audience extension capabilities. The combination of Tapad's leading cross-device technology, with Bidtellect's unparalleled scale and optimization capabilities, will allow content marketers within brands and agencies to develop even more strategic, effective content marketing campaigns. The Tapad Graph™ will allow content marketers to gain greater reach and create more relevant, unified messaging with targeted delivery, when used in conjunction with Bidtellect's technology. Marketers can expect to benefit from amplified reach, and enhanced, privacy-safe engagement with desired audiences as a result of this partnership. "Partnering with Tapad, the leaders in cross-device data, provides Bidtellect with a complete solution that leverages both probabilistic and deterministic mapping strategies," said Mike Conway, Chief Technology Officer at Bidtellect. "The Tapad relationship expands our audience size by providing the opportunity to reach the same user across multiple devices and, when used in conjunction with our frequency capping functionality, ensures increased reach, reduced ad saturation, and elimination of wasted ad spend." As the partnership progresses, Tapad will also work with Bidtellect to provide advanced attribution for conversions and engagement metrics including connectivity and amplification. These advanced insights will help brands and agencies develop a more holistic approach to content marketing, so they can build audiences and influence bidding algorithms that directly impact their business. "We're thrilled to be working with Bidtellect as the company's first cross-device partner," said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Data Licensing and Strategic Partnerships at Tapad. "At Tapad, we are continuously advancing our identity resolution solutions to keep pace with the ever-changing needs of marketers. As a part of that commitment, we look to work with partners where our technology is able to enhance their offering to better serve marketers. We are looking forward to creating that superior experience with the Bidtellect team." Contact us today to get started
What is the most valued asset an advertiser has? Is it their brand? Is it their inventory? Is it their ever-improving website? The answer is simple – it’s their CRM file. Without it, nothing else matters. People have several options when it comes to the wide variety of products and services in the marketplace, so advertisers need to communicate with their customers in a relevant manner through media channels their customers prefer. This creates a more pleasant experience for the customer, and the potential for a lifelong relationship. And the CRM file is the first part of that equation. The second part of the equation is quality, third-party information. When combined, advertisers can have a holistic view into the customer’s behaviors, preferences and interests – keys to relevant communication. And of course, Experian is here to help! OmniActivation is built upon Experian’s ability to leverage/match an advertiser’s own customer file including the names and addresses, email, phone numbers, social IDs, digital IDs, etc., with various media partners and destinations. As you can imagine, there is complexity in how each of these identifying points can be used for successful matching/targeting. For this article, we want to focus on the value of being able to match using the client’s names/addresses. Our clients have a common goal to ensure that they are sending the right messages/right offers at the right time to their customers to drive business and revenue. Matching (using name and address) is the ultimate means of being able to accomplish that goal. Experian has perfected the ability to match using names/addresses and has provided this support for decades to benefit our clients. Our matching expertise relies on the following three critical factors: Security: Experian ensures the security of any data by using encryption or secure transfer protocols in receiving data for matching projects. We understand the value of personally identifiable information (PII) and our high security standards reflect that focus. Accuracy: Our ability to match PII using custom logic and parameters ensures that we are identifying the most accurate matches. Matching PII between two files is the most direct and accurate way to target. We can identify PII matches based upon individual, household and address levels and have consistently outperformed our competitors on name/address matching standards. Confidence: Experian is a trusted third party for our clients and their most valued asset, their CRM files. While we know that the complexity of matching will continue to expand including all types of current and new digital applications, Experian is confident that the value of PII matching will continue to be a cornerstone for our clients to reach their customers.