Political campaigns, campaigns for change and advertising campaigns all emerge from a similar foundation of wanting to connect with a larger group of people for a common cause. But to find that connection easily, to spread the message and see tangible results, a campaign starts with two founding principles: a message and an audience. These are related in how the message must resonate with an audience to gain traction and be successful.
To establish a strong relationship between a campaign’s message and the target audience, it’s important to understand your audience, their behavior and their needs. Advertising campaigns of the past worked largely on the basis of assumption. Today’s technology has changed that way of working into one of insight, personalization and intelligence.
First, second and third party data, aggregated from different sources and integrated by a data management platform (DMP) onto a demand-side platform (DSP), can improve your campaign goals, help you achieve success faster, and is the link between your message and your audience. This type of data provides significant value to an advertising campaign of any kind, but particularly a cross-device campaign where it can be difficult to identify and target your customers across multiple devices.
Data Aggregation
The first step in understanding how data can transform a cross-device campaign is to understand the types of data that exist and where it comes from:
• First party data is data you collect and own.
• Second party data is first party data shared between entities.
• Third party data is insight collected by an outside firm.
Data aggregation is the process of collecting points of information from a variety of places and bringing it to one central platform. From there, advertisers can pull the data they need to inform their campaigns and shape the content. For example, if a software company wants to launch a campaign targeted at the remote worker, it could sift through their first party data collected from sales and registration forms and integrate third party data like demographic and behavioral data, user identification data to match consumers across devices, and mobile app ownership data related to apps commonly used by remote workers. After deciding which data is most relevant and helpful, companies can layer it all together to inform their targeting.
Campaign Goals
Once a message has been formulated and an audience generated, you can create campaign goals. Goals are the guiding force in putting a campaign into action and also where the real value of data comes into play. A few common goals of a cross-device campaign highlight how powerful data can be in constructing the right message, increasing engagement and experiencing higher conversion rates.
Gain the right insights.
When you layer first, second and third party data together, the holistic result is a near-perfect representation of your audience. Discovering insights about where they spend their time, how they behave between their devices and where they are willing to make a purchase can help you decide if a mobile in-app ad is worth your investment or a location targeted campaign will result in more engagement. The more you use data in your campaigns, the more data you will be able to aggregate, getting you closer to the ideal of knowing exactly where to communicate and with whom.
Prospect the right people.
Using data to your advantage also involves the hypothetical. A custom data solution like those developed by Digilant’s can use all the appropriate data to run a model to find new prospects. This method takes the insight gained from your data, compares it against other users who are not already customers, and identifies a like-minded audience who exhibits high-lift attributes. Then you can target them with the knowledge the data has already given you, and you can collect more from this expanded audience.
Retarget the right users.
The biggest challenge within a cross-device campaign is identifying users between their mobile, tablet and desktop devices. Using deterministic and probabilistic matching, Digilant links all device into a single cross-device ID. This single ID enables marketers to target the same consumer as he or she moves from one device to another.
Realizing the Value
You can realize the value of data by layering all types together, leveraging the expertise of a data-centric programmatic partner like Digilant, and continuing the cycle of data aggregation and use. Once you begin to use the data tactic on your cross-device campaigns, you will see the customers become more than numbers. They will become the people you want to connect, engage and share your message with.
A successful campaign always ends in victory, whether that’s a won political office, a noticeable change or a rise in profits. Let data be your secret weapon in gaining that victory.