Many Publishers Not Fully Mining Audience Data

Business periodical marketers come to AccuList USA for help with audience building via multi-channel campaigns, but as data experts, we'd like to remind them that their audience data offers other revenue streams worth mining. Most publishers know that targeted audience data is key to competing for ad dollars; for improved subscriber response via personalization; and for better targeted content marketing. A recent Adweek article by Jason Downie suggests several other ways to monetize audience data. Downie urges publishers to build “off-the-shelf” audience segments that can be sold directly to advertisers, for example. Consider how a seminar promoter could use a business magazine's data if the publication built an audience of people interested specifically in his topics or proven seminar buyers; the advertiser would be able to enjoy the benefits of tapping not just a business-engaged audience but a strategically targeted set of potential buyers more likely to convert. Audience segments can also offer insights that can be further monetized. For example, analytics could show that seminar attendees are four times more likely to share content online. That makes them online influencers, and since influencers are extremely valuable, the publisher can demand a higher CPM. Additionally, an audience segment can open the door to new advertisers and marketers, including non-endemic spending. A business publisher's analytics may show a subscriber segment visits golf sites as well as the magazine site, for example. The publisher can now woo clients looking to target "golfers." Another way publishers can take advantage of data is in the RFP process, according to the Adweek article, noting that the average publisher spends up to 1,600 hours per month, or 18% of revenue, responding to advertiser RFPs. Publishers can develop a customized response to an advertiser RFP, starting with first-party data to build out the RFP-requested audience and then enriching that database with third-party data appending. Digital campaigns can expand targeting by adding lookalikes. Author Downie advises running a portion of an ad campaign without audience or contextual targeting to identify additional audiences, interests, actions and behaviors of those who respond well to the campaign but were not included in the initial targeting. Still another option for publishers with high-quality audience data is to sell it as "second-party data," either directly to another company through a second-party data exchange or through a programmatic data exchange. And, of course, subscriber lists can be monetized as "third-party data," earning regular rental revenue on the open market and via data brokers. For more detail, see http://www.acculistusa.com/many-business-publications-fail-to-fully-mine-audience-data/

Addressing 'Big Data' Issues in Agency Agreements

The era of "big data" has created both greater opportunities and greater complications for marketers in terms of access and use of data. In fact, Advertising Audit and Risk Management (AARM), a North American provider of independent advertising audit and consulting services, recently urged advertisers and marketers to review agency contracts to make sure they address evolving "big data" issues. Data can drive a precisely targeted marketing strategy by leveraging insights from transactional and customer behavioral data--assuming that the advertiser has the right to receive and use that data. Based on their experience, AARM cites at least six key, but often unanswered, data questions that should be covered in contracts: Who owns the data; where the data is stored; how long the data is stored; how secure the data is; whether the data is kept separate from that of other advertisers; and whether the data is being used to aid other advertisers. AARM points out that data ownership is not automatically ceded to an advertiser or marketer despite investment in a media buy generating a data stream. Many within the media chain may try to claim the generated data: Ad agencies, trading desks, publishers, demand-side platforms, and third-party ad servers all may seek unrestricted access, if not ownership, of valuable customer data. That's why marketers and advertisers need to be sure that legal agreements clearly and consistently spell out data ownership rights, privacy considerations, security and access rights for first-, second- and third-party data. For more, see the full post at http://www.acculistusa.com/what-data-questions-should-agency-agreements-address/