Mediabrands' Cadreon Shifts Focus To Verification, Studies Whether Targeted Ads Are Hitting Mark

Mediabrands' Cadreon unit, which focuses on buying targeted audiences rather than inventory, has launched a new program, "Audience Movement," which aims to verify that targeted ads are reaching Web users who are interested in purchasing the products advertised.

In February, the company quietly shifted the focus of its platform technology group to verifying audiences. Previously, that four-person unit focused on implementing the rollout of its offering. Now, two of the unit's members -- out of 34 Cadreon employees total -- are focused on verifying the audience.

The program aims to answer a simple question, says Michael Brunick, vice president, media technology for Cadreon: "Are we messaging to the right people?"

A recent case study conducted by the agency shows that current methods of evaluating whether users want to purchase particular goods or services sometimes fall short.

For the study, Cadreon questioned approximately 1,000 Web users who had been identified as potential buyers of a particular computer brand. Cadreon served those users with banner ads that contained a survey asking users if they had been shopping for that type of computer.

Almost 8 in 10 -- 78% of the users who were targeted because they had visited the brand's own site -- answered yes. By comparison, only 28% of people who were targeted because they had looked at the brand on a "long tail" shopping site responded yes.

2 comments about "Mediabrands' Cadreon Shifts Focus To Verification, Studies Whether Targeted Ads Are Hitting Mark ".
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  1. John Dietz, March 29, 2010 at 12:51 p.m.

    The numbers presented in this article don't really reveal a lot, which is unfortunate because this is a serious issue. When advertisers are buying audiences, they are trusting that the targeting vendor can deliver that audience, so the real question is whether that 28% interest rate is meaningful. If there was a control test and it was found that a typical non-targeted ad campaign hit only 5% shopping for the brand, then moving that to 28% might be considered a success, but if a non-targeted buy found 25% shopping for the brand, then that targeting would be a failure. It doesn't seem that comparing the results to site retargeting is the best way to gauge effectiveness.

  2. Mike John-baptiste from Peerset, April 5, 2010 at 4:16 p.m.

    I agree with John's comment. 28% actually feels like a blowout positive success for targeting for the much larger percentage of people that don't visit a brands website. The probably with a survey of course is that the people that choose to response are likely to care more about that product so it will overweight the results. All in all I am happy that Mediabrands is holding themselves accountable for the programs they are running. Good for advertisers. -JB

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