• by Steve Wooledge , October 7, 2014

Consumers generate an enormous amount of transaction and interaction data when they research, buy, and discuss products and services. The challenge, however, is that approximately 80% of this data is “unstructured,” which is data that can’t be easily analyzed via traditional and established methods. Digital ad agencies are giving Hadoop, a free technology tool, a starring role in this scenario, since it can be used to capture and analyze this mountain of information by ingesting data from a multitude of sources, such as Web clickstream, video, social media and transactional systems. Here are ways  you can use Hadoop to enhance your digital advertising efforts:

1.     Improve ad targeting and optimization: Hadoop can be used to ingest data faster than traditional relational database methods, which require “structuring”/schema, are expensive, and don’t scale well. By using Hadoop, you can integrate complex and fast-changing data from digital channels, and evaluate click-through rates, impressions, and time to conversion. Most importantly, you’ll get the data you need in order to serve relevant promotions in real time to those consumers who are ready to purchase.

2.     Achieve greater ad personalization: By using Hadoop to compile and analyze billions of user-related events and generate millions of user profiles, you will be much better equipped to perform personalized ad targeting and optimize your ad campaigns. These targeted ads are based on the massive amounts of data that consumers provide about what they are saying, doing, and liking/sharing on the Internet.

3.     Use hyperlocal advertising to reach customers: Hadoop gives you the ability to process and analyze massive amounts of data, including geolocation data, sensor data, social network activity, facial recognition, and customer sentiment. By leveraging this data, you can target customers at exactly the right place and time, and deliver offers that they will likely accept—turning browsers into buyers.

4.     Enhance social media sentiment analysis: Hadoop can be used to monitor billions of social media posts, tweets and likes. There is a great deal of business value in these attitudes, opinions and emotions. By analyzing customer sentiment, you’ll have a greater understanding as to what is working with ad campaigns, a greater insight into your competition, and a greater ability to make decisions in real time.

To summarize, if you have better data compared to your competitors, and are able to use that data strategically with tools such as Hadoop, you will improve your customer experience and stand out from the crowd. Being able to capture and analyze consumer clickstream, transaction, sensor, email, log and social media data, you’ll be better equipped to spot trends/patterns, understand your ad campaign’s performance, create detailed customer profiles, perform advanced ad targeting based on consumer behavior, and leverage insights from sentiment analysis to drive product innovation.