Tim Cross explains how advances in ad targeting are leading to a digital utopia
As technology innovation finally enables PPC, display, social media, email and other channels to be managed and measured through a single interface, it would appear that the utopia of a fully integrated approach to digital marketing may actually be becoming a reality.
With a new breed of ad targeting tools and techniques now available, advertisers are getting more personal than ever before with the way in which digital ads are targeted.
Over the last couple of years there have been significant advances in the way information about individuals’ online behaviour is being used to inform the targeting of display ads, moving beyond the use of channels and categories to a point where ads are now served on a user by user basis.
Behavioural targeting especially has experienced massive growth and it was estimated to account for as much as half of the £380m spent on online display in the UK in the first half of 2010.
Key to the success of behavioural targeting is that it enables advertisers to move beyond targeting customers by placement and content type, by analysing your recent web browsing, search terms and click habits to determine what you are looking to purchase.
Beyond this, brands are now taking advantage of technology allowing them to retarget people who have shown an interest in their products and services online but are yet to convert. At a later time or on another site, an advertiser such as an online retailer can ensure the prospect has the goods re-presented to them in an advert in the hope that it will prompt them to complete the purchase.
Described by some as being followed down the street by the shopkeeper after leaving the store, the use of this kind of technology has not been without its problems. In 2008, the piloting of one system prompted the European Commission to ask the Home Office to re-examine British law to align privacy rules with EU law. Though the move is mainly focused on how the police can use personal data, there is a possibility that it could have long-term ramifications for digital marketing.
Retargeting display
The most recent advances in behavioural targeting are focused on retargeting people when they are not even on the advertiser’s site. So users are not only being served relevant offers when on a brand’s site based on behaviour they have displayed in the past, but are now also being targeted off-site with adverts that encourage them to return and take action.
The full potential of retargeting display advertising is put into context when you consider that 95 per cent of users leave a site without making a transaction, and the ones re-targeted are 70 per cent more likely to complete a purchase (stats from criteo.com).
The latest hybrid of this technology is the combining of behavioural targeting with subsequent retargeting, by first advertising to people likely to be interested in a specific product or service, a brand can subsequently retarget those targeted customers who came to the site but did not convert.
Whilst it all sounds very Orwellian, these new targeting techniques now provide brands with the tools to create a completely personalised online experience for each and every person who revisits their website.
By combing a customer's behaviour when browsing a brand's website with additional data about how that customer engaged with the brand's display ads and email campaigns, companies are starting to reshape their website to fit with the customer's likely frame of mind.
This move into actually determining what a person sees when they visit a brand’s page based on their previous activity is being supplemented by brands looking to explore social media and collate a target audience from what people publish about themselves; who they ’like’ or ’follow’ and how well-received their comments are.
Broadening the reach beyond conventional marketing channels and looking to open up one-to-one discussions with people whose behaviour suggests they are a potential ’influencer’ is clearly a route down which behavioural targeting is heading.
Leveraging data for retargeting
Search and display have always had fundamental synergies, but only recently have the lines between the two really started to cross. The advent of display advertising exchanges (DAE), demand side platforms (DSP) and real time bidding (RTB) brings display closer than ever to search in terms of how media is traded, and with the focus of many advertisers moving away from last click attribution models, there is now more integration of data and in particular search data to retarget display advertising.
For example, if a consumer searches for something relevant to a business and they arrive at a website via a pay-per-click (PPC) ad, and they then choose, for any number of reasons, not to follow through with a conversion, normally this would be considered as a wasted click. However, if the marketer is using retargeting, they can then show display ads to that person with the chance of getting a conversion at a later date.
This approach increases the chance for conversion from an otherwise abandoned click. It also means you can focus your display budget on customers who, through their search activity, have proven to have an interest in what you are selling. Not only does this aid your display campaign by focusing more budget on qualified targets, it also gives more viability to your search campaign as both a point of conversion and an initial touch point.
Cross-channel attribution
Ultimately, these advances in targeting mean the days of attributing all the value in a sales cycle to the last click are coming to an end. Users are interacting with a larger variety of media and each can and will have some impact on the user. Now, marketers should consider, measure and give credit to the multiple factors that influence the final outcome.
Recent changes to Google’s analytics package now make it possible for any advertiser to do cross-channel attribution, and the introduction of a free tool should only stand to educate advertisers further as to the potential benefits of looking beyond the last click.
The major challenge will lie in how best to identify and collect the most relevant and valuable data and to leverage this data effectively whilst trying not to become too preoccupied with the whole process and losing sight of the end goal. This isn’t necessarily easy and does require a different set of skills – more analytical and organised than creative.
Subsequently, digital marketers with a background in search where this kind of approach is the norm should be at an advantage. Search marketers are quantitative by nature. Their world consists of spreadsheets, tiny details and a lot of testing. They are held to rigorous goals, with every click and conversion tracked. There is little that is ambiguous in the search world and the display market is slowly but surely moving in the same direction.
As the integration between the different digital disciplines continues, we find ourselves in exciting times. As digital marketers continue to refine and perfect new targeting techniques then the better the experience for the customer, because advertising based on what you actually want, like and discuss is surely better all round.
Tim Cross, Display Advertising Manager, Guava