Effective targeting for media planning
Ben Humphry, Country Director UK and Ireland at predictive behavioural targeting business nugg.ad, on effective targeting for media planning
We all understand the importance of getting targeting right when it comes to media spend; better targeting equals better ROI, so why is it that targeting is often not getting the expected results?
Why is the current method of media planning not delivering effective targeting despite increased access to consumer data and targeting technology? Can greater transparency, particularly delivered by online media, ensure the delivery of better targeted campaigns?
In the TV world, we have a culture of media planning and control which may be considered riddled with errors. In Germany, for example, virtually all campaigns and their effects are assessed by means of a household panel. As this panel is of key importance to the calculation of audience share and in determining the effective reach and contact dose of TV campaigns, it is painstakingly recruited and maintained to ensure that the 5,640 of German households involved – comprising of approximately 13,000 people – are representative of the overall viewing public of 72.2 million.
If, for example, an advertising block has viewing ratings of 12,000 people, this does not represent 12,000 ad deliveries which have been measured, but refers to around two people in the ratings panel who saw, or partially saw, an advertising block and therefore may or may not have seen an ad. Each individual in this group represents about 6,000 people in the actual target group.
If a single panel member forgets to mark an absence even once, while answering the phone or making a cup of tea for example, this creates a measuring error of 100%. Nevertheless, this is a process that has been put in place and relied upon for decades.
The story for online is quite similar. What is obvious is that media planning is based on assumptions and statistics and therefore prone to errors. So is it all a big sham? Certainly not.
These kinds of planning systems have considerable advantages over others like complete measurement or intuition because they are systematic, valid, and most of all cost effective. These systems provide something of vital importance: a standardised planning overview of the entire market. They are an indispensible tool for advertisers and advertising agencies in the planning and controlling of their campaigns as well as forming the basis for the evaluation of their agency planning and media performance.
So what about targeting? The real difference between targeting systems and classic media control approaches is that they allow target groups to be ordered directly, via the ad server, rather than making it necessary to select them via a separate research tool. The advantages are important; efficiency and speed, flexible ordering and control, independence of other environments, and therefore, higher reach. However, as with classic media control, such systems can be inaccurate as they are based on statistics and assumptions. The difference is what causes the error and how obvious and therefore measurable it is.
If a targeting system is being used to target women aged 20-29 with at least four contacts it will also employ data which, using user surveys and their surfing behaviour, indicates whether a specific user fits into a target group and whether the ad should be delivered.
Online targeting systems have a couple of key advantages. They offer the possibility to monitor the number of contacts per user in real time as the campaign is carried out and they also measure target accuracy within the desired target group via panels. These advantages of “measurability” make it possible to identify errors more clearly.
In reality, modern targeting systems generally deliver performance values which are at least as good as those provided by classic systems. Error margins are significantly smaller due to cutting-edge algorithms, fewer data sets, the availability of up-to-date data and the fact that more data is available with more on the way. If expectations remain realistic, the success achieved through the latest targeting systems can be very impressive.
A recent independent study by nurago on our intelligent target group management solution revealed it can deliver up to 168% more target group share than campaigns which are booked using a standard run of channel campaign, in channels from four leading German publishers that were predisposed to the target audience. This is of course while still continuing to provide outstanding brand effect and campaign performance results.
The opportunities for online media in the advertising mix are growing, largely due to the efforts of targeting, because no other medium can provide a comparable level of measurability and transparency. The significance of these mechanisms will continue to grow in the future and will be spurred on further when more TV ad budget follows media consumption to digital.
Whilst the measurability and transparency of these new tools can also be used against them, we are setting the bar far higher than it was ever set for classic media. It seems odd that we’re so ready to criticise a technological innovation which, held up to the light, can do many things better than classic planning tools.