• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, August 23, 2016

“Brands and agencies that understand the nature of cross-platform audiences will be best positioned to understand the modern consumer,” said Aaron Fetters, SVP of marketing solutions at comScore, at MediaPost’s Programmatic Insider Summit.

The advent of robust data management platforms (DMPs) and the various integrations marketers now have for their own first-party data and for their third-party data partners have intensified and expanded targeting capabilities across the industry.

Marketers must be aware that data alone won’t help clients reach their KPIs or increase engagement across the board. Thoughtfully preparing an audience strategy that can be bolstered by data is a prerequisite to marketing success.

“Audience strategy needs to be a pillar of data strategy,” said Emmy Spahr, director of programmatic at Razorfish, during the Programmatic Summit’s first panel of the day.

“Some clients try to take DMPs directly in-house, collect data, then have no idea what to do with it,” added Fetters. “Strategy is now trying to catch up with the focus on data and DMPs in the programmatic space.”

“Focusing on audience-centric messaging instead of a product-centric approach seems to be where we are headed,” concluded panel moderator Jennifer Perry, associate director of audience insight and strategy at Merkle.