Companies that process and use data correctly typically generate a stronger financial performance, according to a recent study. Some 46% of executives from companies that significantly outperform their peers financially admit they have a well-defined data strategy, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit report "Big Data: Lessons From the Leaders.".

A new consumer behavior has emerged, using smartphones in store aisles. But research suggests that "showrooming" is a more complicated activity that requires retailers to target customers as much with data as with deals.

DoubleVerify will soon announce a deal that integrates its viewability measurement with Kantar Media Compete's panel data at the user level without tapping into personal identifiable information (PII), according to Mark Pearlstein, senior VP of DoubleVerify, which provides online advertising verification.

Can marketers use smartphone surveys to tap into the deepest motives and emotions that influence consumer decision-making? Maybe if you ask the right leading question and provide pictures.

Unstructured data like video will grow from 245 exabytes of data across the Internet in 2010 to 1,000 exabytes in 2015, according to Mark Papermaster, SVP and CTO at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), citing Cisco System specs. Companies will need about 10 million new servers in data centers. He spoke about the explosion of data and the entrance of surround computing at the Hot Chips conference.

The telecom industry is finally getting into the big, big data pile it has built for itself. The promise of real-time behavioral targeting in this industry is crafting offers that target not only people, but actions, and contexts.

Political values will become the next big audience targeting segment for brand marketers looking to link their products and services with a specific type of consumer. A couple of recent political ad targeting tools, one from Adiant, and the other by Google, have convinced me of the future of political ad segmentation.

App publishers for kids have a unique challenge: they have to sell their wares to a parental audience that is not the actual long-term user of the app. Motion Math used analytics to determine when the buyer was really present.

Single point of failure (SPoF) sounds like an aeronautical term related to NASA's Mars mission, but it's not. It refers to problems in Web site tag management systems (TMS). TagMan, which offers a TMS solution, set out to simulate multiple failures of four major airline Web sites driven by online bookings.

By targeting the right audience with ads that encouraged interaction and information gathering, the American Heart Association got a welcome payoff from an engagement campaign: a lift in donations.