Commentary

So Say the Audience Sellers

We've been talking about buying audiences -- rather than buying clicks or buying content -- for some time now. It's more than a planning concept. It's more than entry-level behavior targeting. At its best, its promise is pegged on ultra-efficiency and getting your hands on unique, advanced consumer data profiles. Further, when the process of buying audiences works out for you, you are able to engage through digital outlets to gradually understand who your best customers are (or what they look like by profile) and how to increasingly maximize the output of that relationship.

There's a whole patch of our industry in love with this concept, the promise and the science behind it. This is of course the arena populated by premium networks, DSPs, holding company trading desks and various associated entities and media company ilk - all tying the scale of their businesses to harnessing the demand side, a.k.a. the audience.

The game is on. Differentiation is starting to become more obvious to the rest of us -- marketers, brands, agencies and buying organizations who look to do business with those making audiences available at scale. We're seeing premium networks reinvent themselves, and the original DSPs becoming a more advanced version of themselves; how the benefits of the various players and platforms prove out in the market or not. Of course it's dawning on the market that this sector is prone to throw around the terms "buying audience" and "audience intelligence with sometime reckless, salesperson-like abandon.

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Having a few friends and clients in this space, I've been thinking a lot about differentiation, authenticity and delivering on the promise of large-scale audience buying. We have become familiar with the pitch. Generally speaking: "We make audience available at scale, providing access to your target with the most efficiency, the best data analysis and the strongest tools and/or support team." But it seems that some of the basic tenets of the so-called demand-side proposition are not enough. If you are in the business of helping the marketer to his target, a few things have to be more true for you than for your competitor:


  • You have to be committed to solving more than simply an inventory problem. Your marketer, client or agency can get inventory anywhere, at every turn.
  • If you are hanging your shingle on "audience intelligence," take care to prove to the market and prospective client base that this indeed is your business, revealing the science, the data pools, the analytics aptitude that make you worthy as a provider and indispensable partner.
  • The tools set and/or services operation must be best in class -- truly arming or supporting buyers and rendering them heroic with their clients or within their organization, where they must stand up and be counted for their brilliant marketing work.

    It was with these imperatives in mind on the provider side that I attended a session this morning at OMMA Performance: "Audience Buying vs. Content Buying - How to Get Your Campaigns into Balance." I thought it was quite interesting to hear providers, publishers and intermediaries of various ilk talk to the marketer, counseling on approaches to balancing the buy. The confab included ContextWeb, Microsoft Media Network, AdMarketplace, Ad Summos and new entrant Accordant Media, whose founders bring both search and client services chops: a mix I find interesting.

    There were no astounding surprises, but I found a few threads very reassuring in their focus on understanding, data discretion and organized approaches to analysis.

    By some industry estimations, nearly half of all display will soon be transacted by RTB (real-time bidding), essentially applying search marketing method to display -- identifying and capturing demand by bidding for it. So, whatever your tier of objectives -- branding, audience, performance -- it is essential to know what is available to you, as a marketer, and how to go about buying and harnessing it. By all accounts this morning, on this panel, balance or smart load balancing and allocation will only be achieved by analyzing performance. We're all familiar with the often painful trade-offs of brand association (being near the right content), tonnage, performance, specific CPA or ROI, ROAS goals. You can't afford not to ask about certain capabilities -- most certainly analytics -- when considering partners, or ask for proof and relevant case histories. You've got to dig in.

    We marketers or agencies partnering with any given entity in this space should eschew jargon and platitudes on "buying audience efficiently." For there are key, blunt questions to ask about scientific precision, analytic capabilities and the excellence of tools and services available to help us shrewdly, swiftly balance the buy and get things on track to scale.

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