An interesting working example of how this is being done well can be found in how politicians are targeting you for your vote. After all, its an election year and there is going to be no shortage of political spending. A recent NY Times article explores the use of highly targeted political advertising. So, which party are you affiliated with? Which candidate appeals to you? Don't worry if you don't know. Because the folks running political campaigns can answer these questions for you. It wasn't always this way though.
Consider this quote from the NY Times article:
"Forty years ago, you'd watch the same evening news ad as your Democratic neighbor," according to Kenneth M. Goldstein, president of the Campaign and Media Analysis Group at Kantar Media.
In contrast, today:
"Two people in the same house could get different messages. Not only will the message change, the type of content will change" said Zac Moffatt, the digital director for Mitt Romney's campaign.
The article goes on to describe the process of microtargeting using digital cookies and matching up your online footprint (cookie crumbs) with offline data about you, such as your credit information, the organizations you belong to or support, possibly even the brand and model car you own. This is matched up with voting data (excluding the candidates you voted for). Your data is combined with other similar profiles and candidates are buying access to you as part of an audience profile.
The big advantage here is that the candidates can buy ad placement that targets people they care to target rather than everyone that visits a particular website which may be a wide range of audience segments including many eyeballs they will never convert into votes and therefore don't want to pay to advertise to.
Underscoring the importance of targeting in a political campaign, consider this statement:
"We want to hit the people who can actually go out and vote," Blaise Hazelwood, the president of Grassroots Targeting.
So, how can a marketer selling windows, cars, homes, insurance or otherwise make use of this type of targeting? Profile data has been available for some time and has become richer as consumers spend more and more time online and share information. Using third party sources such as Clearspring or Quantcast or even through Google, an advertiser can designate a specific type of audience they wish to target and advertise to only that audience. Offline data from companies such as Experian, or Axciom, can be supplemented with online data to make ads even more laser targeted.
If you want to sell more windows, you would target your ads to an audience profile that possesses the demographics you desire, in the geography where you wish to sell more windows and at a time when they might be in the market for windows. All this is accomplished using the type of data profiling described above.
You can also make your ad dollars work harder by using the insights you gain about the audience to help shape your messaging and offer. Knowing how to target an audience using media is the first step. We'll cover the messaging discussion in a future post.
For now, remember that you are leaving a trail of personal information everywhere you go online and offline from websites you visit to the stores you shop and buy goods. You'll be seeing more political ads this year than you likely care for, but remember they should be targeted to you. Unless, that is, you happen to be on your spouse's computer.
Image courtesy of thegreenkey.net
