This has been a big year for data in online advertising. For a long time, Google’s stance on the potential deprecation of the cookie has been our industry’s version of Ross and Rachel’s “Will they, won’t they?”. Unfortunately, our version hasn’t been tied up in a neat romantic bow because, in July, Google reversed its decision to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome.
So, where does this leave us? Well, while this decision kept both the demand and supply sides in limbo, ultimately, third-party cookies are still going to become less and less prevalent, while first-party data will continue to grow into the driving force behind audience targeting.
However, there is just so much of it. Data. Big Data! Data Lakes!
What on earth are we meant to do with all of it? If you’re a publisher with tonnes of first-party data to play with, the temptation is to talk to clients about scale. But this can be overwhelming. When you have billions of data signals being collected, offering this to a client and simply saying “buy it” is mind-boggling. It’s far too much choice, akin to the paralysis you feel when surfing through a multitude of content on Netflix or Disney+, and inevitably end up choosing Friends repeats.
Therefore, choosing and hitting target audiences when using first-party data needs to be made simple, even if the technology behind it is anything but. This is why we have taken steps at Mail Metro Media to simplify the process with new data products.
Signal: Off-the-shelf solutions
Typically, most marketers define and target audiences through insights as a process of elimination. Start with a broad proposition and filter down, excluding along the way to reach a sub-set of your brand’s sweet spot, and try not to over-target.
Now, we can use the depth of our first-party data to target a specific audience based on a number of different, layered data signals. Let’s use football fans as an example. Residency in a postcode with a high propensity for football fandom or dwell time on certain team pages are solid indicators, and powerful when used together. Add in access to discount codes for replica football shirts, or even prior e-commerce activity on similarly themed content, and you build up a more robust picture of a specific target audience.
In this case, our Signal product is the Match of the Day for data. All of the important information is provided for you based on what’s worked well in the past. There are now over 20 Signal categories, from cruise, property, days out and leisure, to beauty, fashion, and health.
Signal Roadblock: Informed evolution of the page takeover
Taking data decisions a step forward, our Signal Roadblock product harnesses the specificity of the Signal targeting but delivers attention grabbing impact in a full-page takeover solution across desktop, mobile and app. This supports clients who want a brand-impact product but don’t want any wastage outside of their chosen audience.
For example, if a sports brand wants to target women who are interested in football, this solution would mean that any relevant user who visits the site would be targeted by the first impression takeover before any other advertisement that day. This puts both impact and priming frequency into the hands of every brand, whatever their budget, and enables them to own the audience, whatever they are reading. Even better, we can overlay brand safety if required, too.
Exclusive+: Tailored options for those with a clear picture
Of course, there are extremely data-literate partners out there. Those seeking the gold standard for data provision are ideal for Exclusive+, which offers bespoke, tailor-made data aligned to the client brief, curated by our award-winning commercial audience data team.
In-flight campaign optimisation makes these insights work as hard as possible for the brand and, just like Netflix, Disney+ or AppleTV, fuses scale with quality and informative learnings for further future optimisation.
There are many other products on our data spectrum to be explored, but the key to simplifying the data landscape for brands and partners has been for us to meet them at their point of need and simplify as far as possible.
Essentially, the data can go as deep or as lightweight as brands need – both will have their place. For the data discerning, there are rich worlds of first-party information to be explored, but not everyone needs to be an insight expert to activate a great campaign. Sometimes, the best episode of Friends is The One Which Hits Just the Right Spot.
To find out more about Mail Metro Media data products, visit www.mailmetromedia.co.uk