How manufacturers can adapt to the altering face of concentrating on – Nielsen

Consumers should always be the # 1 priority for any brand, regardless of their industry or location. 1. It is true that sales are the ultimate goal of any business, but sales – and the generation of sales – depend on consumers who are receptive to what a brand has to offer. And when it comes to branding, marketers need to be able to nurture the engagement, awareness, and consideration of people who aren’t already customers.

The premise of audience targeting is certainly not new, but given the rapid change in opportunities, marketers need different tactics and strategies than those they have been using for the last 20 years or so. Addressable digital advertising has long been the most widely used channel for targeting, and the increased adoption of web-enabled devices and smart TVs now allows marketers to apply the same mindset to linear TV and other “traditional” media on a large scale. Addressable digital technology is changing with data protection-safe surfing. This results in new opportunities and challenges. Let’s take a closer look at these two areas.

Addressable technology

Digital has been the predominant channel for ad targeting, largely due to addressability – the ability to deliver an ad on a large scale to a specific intended destination. While this addressability is a perk, marketers need to be aware that it does not equate to perfection. Data from SME Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) shows that the average percentage of ads on computers and mobile devices averages 63%, even with goals defined by age and gender – goals for which there is significant data coverage and quality.

That doesn’t mean marketers shouldn’t use data to target specific audiences. Marketers should use high quality and deterministically captured audience data to increase accuracy. To compare records and gauge their value, marketers would do well to better measure the accuracy of targeting and sales impact.

Third Party Identifiers

No discussion of digital targeting would be complete without considering its future state – a world without third-party identifiers. However, it is clear that 44% (or more) of US internet users use browsers without third-party cookies. Additionally, many have disabled mobile device tracking since the Apple IOS 14.5 upgrade. This represents an important part of Internet users who work without third-party IDs. DStillery stated in a blog post earlier this year that up to 90% display impressions would be free of third-party IDs. Both addressability and performance of ads are at risk when impressions are sent to anonymous viewers.

An advertiser can respond to this increasing challenge in three ways:

• With persistent, personal identifiers, you rely on first-party data
• Leverage the addressability of digital video; it’s the future (CTV, Smart TVs, etc.)
• Optimization vs. Use of a Decades-Old Context Targeting Technology: Use Innovation or Not

The collection, maintenance and use of personal identifiers requires an investment in first-party data – the data that companies collect directly from users or individuals in compliance with their consent. The data can be rooted in other persistent forms of ID such as email address, phone numbers, and physical address. These IDs are privatized using a number of common hashing protocols. They can then be shared and matched for targeted advertising.

Advertisers must be able to target users based on their IDs in order to be successful in this environment. They need to speak the same ID language used by content creators and publishers who bring consumers to their sites.

Effective marketing that includes commitment, attention, and consideration is cost effective from an economic point of view. High quality viewer data is critical to media efficiency, even as advertising budgets are increasing in many countries. This is where developing a data strategy – and data connectivity for activation – is a critical endeavor. The lack of quality data is a huge problem for many marketers.

It is important that brand targeting cannot be approached in a vacuum and target groups should not be copied and pasted from one channel to another. Brands should employ a comprehensive audience strategy across linear and digital channels that leverages the strengths of each medium. These efforts should be done along with measurements that can help validate the impact of sales and brand buoyancy – ideally during the campaigns rather than months later.

Please see our latest report for advertisers for more information.