Commentary

Data Matching To Become Top Focus In 2016

Data matching will replace attribution as one of the major topics across the advertising industry in 2016. Perhaps that's because a multitude of mismatched data sources continue to create major problems in accuracy.

Accurate data boosts ad targeting, but only if one source matches another. While attribution was about identifying the media and assigning a value to its contribution to conversion, it also pushed the idea of spending less media dollars on audiences not relevant to the brand. Programmatic moved in to tidy up the process through automation.

Since everything functions as a data point, because so many devices connect to the Internet, "the [advertising] industry quickly became addicted to data," says Yariv Drori, VP of programmatic advertising operations at MultiView.  

In the old days, media was sold contextually. All of a sudden advertisers gained new insights into the audience, but there hasn't been that much improvement in targeting results, Drori says, pointing to the quality of the data as a lingering problem.

Matching quality data will become the focus for 2016. Often advertisers bring their own data to publishers. Advertisers curate, bring lookalike data and probabilistic algorithms to the publisher in hopes of reaching a broader audience.

For example, ESPN has many sections on its site, including one dedicated to soccer. If Adidas comes to ESPN wanting to buy an ad on the ESPN soccer page to sell products, Drori might use the sports brand's first-party data. "You would expect data from ESPN and the Adidas ad buyer to match very high, but it's actually dismal," Drori says. "It's a huge problem."

When the match doesn't occur, the advertiser and the publisher look at each other and scratch their heads.

"Data is like a clock that gives you time," Drori says. "Too many clocks, all with a slight variation in time, create chaos and the inability to confirm accuracy."

3 comments about "Data Matching To Become Top Focus In 2016".
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  1. Mark Rockett from R&F Digital, December 2, 2015 at 3:48 p.m.

    I agree that this will be a priority, but it will not actually replace attribution.  The way you describe it above, you are implementing a method for prospecting new customers via upper-funnel display activity.  This will lead to filling the funnel with an expanded audience that will convert on lower funnel, last click credit channels such as branded search.  Because of this, you will still need an attribution model to prove that the use of this strategy is actually working to build a new and qualified audience.

    The other, and in my opinion, more important data matching will be two fold:

    1. Cross-device matching of individual users to gain a more complete view of the user's exposure path.
    2. Data matching of online advertising activity with Client's CRM data in order to determine the quality of a user in terms of new-to-file and lifetime value.

  2. Laurie Sullivan from lauriesullivan, December 2, 2015 at 4:22 p.m.

    I don't beleive it will replace attribution. I think it will become a topic to which advertisers pay more attention. 

  3. Billy Delp from Multiview, December 4, 2015 at 7:55 p.m.

    The quality of the data will be a moot point if marketers are unable to quantify each touch point that they have with their customers through accurate attribution. If you can't prove efficacy, it won't matter nearly as much how good or bad the data your data is. As attribution improves, so will the scrutiny of the data putting the two in lockstep, one following the other.


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