Marketers today are striving to combine all forms of consumer information, from basic demographics to purchase behavior and even social and mobile activity, into a single, unified view of their customers. A comprehensive understanding of your customer across channels is the key to developing analytics that can better tailor approaches toward, and thus predict the behavior of, consumers, both online and offline. The quest to identify a single view is nowhere near complete, and while various tactics are adopted to suit the needs of marketers, there is a growing industry debate regarding the ethicality of these practices, especially when the methods of gathering consumer information are either unorthodox or involuntary.
Neustar conducted a study by surveying hundreds of marketers to hear about current practices marketers are implementing in attempt to gain a single view of their customer and how they are currently leveraging this data to efficiently reach their audiences across device and channel. In this session, Paul McConville, Vice President at Neustar will will discuss the effectiveness of optimizing your marketing efforts, the importance of data quality, identity linkages, data access and how the wider legal and moral narrative is shaping norms and realities.
2. Research Purpose
Through this research, we wanted to
determine the following:
What type of information companies
are collecting;
What are they doing with the data in
terms of creating a 360 degree
customer view;
What are marketers’ beliefs on
privacy and what actions are they
taking.
360º
3. Respondents
301 digital media executives responded
50% agencies
22% publishers
18% ad platforms and “other”
10% brands
✓
✓
✓
4. How Important Collecting Data is to
Business Objectives?
WHY?
“Improves our product and the user
experience.”
“Knowing more about audiences and their
behavior can optimize tactics efficiently and
uncover new opportunities”
“We need to provide good content for
consumers and part of that is providing good
ad experiences which enhance performance
for the advertisers.”
87%Believe collecting data is
important to meeting
business objectives.
5. Effectiveness of Data Collection
0%
13%
35%
39%
13%
Not at all effective
Not very effective
Moderately effective
Effective
Very effective
52%
Believe their data
collection efforts is
effective to very effective
in meeting business
objectives.
6. Types of Data Being Collected
76%
collect
demographic
profile data
71%
collect
information based
on phone numbers,
home addresses
and IP
7. Linking Profile Data
50%Of agencies, brands, publishers, ad
platforms can successfully link customer
profile data.
8. Attributing Customer Activity to
Individual Customer ProfilesIt’s Just the Start
54%
Successfully can attribute
customer activity to
individual customer profiles.
Of those who can successfully link data to customer profiles:
3%
4%
39%
42%
12%
Not at all successfully
Not too successfully
Moderately successfully
Successfully
Very successfully
Engagements attribution to individual customer profiles
9. Unifying & Reusing Individual Customer Profiles
Across Online, Mobile and Offline ChannelsRoom for Improvement
Also, of those who can successfully link data to customer profiles:
36%
Successfully can unify and
reuse individual customer
profiles across online,
mobile and offline
channels.
6%
16%
42%
26%
10%
Not at all successfully
Not too successfully
Moderately successfully
Successfully
Very successfully
Cross Channel Linkage
10. The Privacy Debate
Daily media reports on data privacy.
Recent events with Snowden and data breaches at
Target, Neiman Marcus have created new levels of angst
and consumer awareness around privacy.
Transparency about the kinds of data, how they’re
collecting and why.
11. Privacy Concerns
80% Have had data collection process affected by the recent
discussions of privacy and data.
57% Partnering with third parties like companies like Informatica,
IBM and others to ensure they are privacy compliant.
48% Implementing internal new systems and process to support
this.
12. Privacy by Design
“It’s a matter of respect. It’s a fundamental shift of how companies operate
their businesses, create and build products and services with privacy by
design in mind. Privacy by design is a concept which essentially puts
privacy and security at the core of everything to ensure the protection of
consumer information.”
– Becky Burr, Neustar’s Chief Privacy Officer
13. 3 Key Takeaways
The industry still struggles to link data to create a 360º
view of their customers and prospects.
Brands and publishers are in alignment with consumer
privacy concerns.
Brands, publishers have realized that its in their best
interest to be transparent about data collection.
Surveys were distributed by email and made available through social media from May 19, 2014 to June 6, 2014.
A sample of 301 digital media and marketing professionals participated in this study through a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. Of these, 10 percent identified as advertisers, 50 percent as agencies, 22 percent as publisher. The remaining 17 percent (8 percent ad platform; 9 percent “other”) were directed to the last section of the survey on questions of data collecting issues.
Linking data to build personal profiles is a competitive advantage; as stated above, only half of the respondents are able to do this. When it comes to the importance of collecting data for a company’s business objectives:
55.67 percent said it was very important;
30.83 percent said it was important;
10 percent said it was moderately important;
1.67 percent said it was not too important;
.83 percent said it was not at all important
When asked “Why?” most of the respondents mentioned that better user experiences, informed by data collected on users, leads to better business. “More knowledge means the ability to better both our product and the user experience,” said one respondent. Another said, “Knowing more about audiences and how they behave can optimize tactics efficiently and uncover new opportunities.”
From the publisher side: “We need to provide good content for consumers and part of that is providing good ad experiences which enhance performance for the advertisers.”
But while collecting data is important to a company’s business objectives, many are still trying to understand just how effective their data collection is.
According to the survey:
12.5 percent said data collection was very effective in meeting business objectives;
39.17 percent said data collection was effective in meeting business objectives;
35 percent said data collection was moderately effective in meeting business objectives;
13.33 percent said data collection was not very effective in meeting business objectives;
0 percent said data collection was not at all effective in meeting business objectives; that’s good!
Overall, however, with all the time going into collecting data, this should be of concern. The silver lining in this: 94 percent said effectiveness of data collection is just as good or better than a year ago.
Brands and publishers collecting data on consumers isn’t new. What is new, though, is the variety of data types, along with the sheer quantity being collected. All sorts of data -- location data information, demographic data, psychographic data, social interaction data -- are making their way into brand, publisher, marketer and third party databases.
For all these advancements, two traditional types of data -- location information (phone numbers, home address) and demographic profile data -- are still the bread and butter of most companies.
76% collect demographic profile data;
71% collect location information;
59% collect web and site history, and search data
47% collect psychographic profile data (likes, values, attitudes)
45% collect social interaction data (engagement between brands and people)
41% collect purchasing history data
40% collect personally identifiable information;
36% collect social sharing data;
22% collect user-generated content (including pictures);
16% collect financial information (e.g. credit cards)
The biggest opportunity, it appears, is being able to link data to create individual customer profiles.
But according to the survey, half can’t do it,
and of the 50 percent who can successfully link data to customer profiles, the leading types of data sources incorporated into them are, again, fairly traditional data points: location information (74.19 percent) and demographics 72.58).
Surprisingly, only 35 percent are incorporating psychographic profile data (likes, values, attitudes) into customer profiles. Only 30.65 percent reported using social sharing data to create customer profiles; 33.87 percent reported using social interaction data (engagement between brands and people).
Of the respondents who are able to link data to customer profiles:
11.92% reported that they’re able to very successfully attribute engagements to individual customer profiles
41.94% reported that they’re able to successfully attribute engagements to individual customer profiles
38.71% reported that they’re able to moderately successfully attribute engagements to individual customer profile
4.84% reported that they’re not too successfully able to attribute engagements to individual customer profiles
3.23% reported that they’re not at all successfully able to attribute engagements to individual customer profiles
The biggest room for improvement, however, comes with being able to unify and reuse individual customer profiles across different channels; it’s more difficult to do.
Of the 50% who said they’re able to link data to create individual customer profiles:
9.68% said they can very successfully unify and reuse individual customer profiles across online, mobile and offline channels;
25.81% said they can successfully unify and reuse individual customer profiles across online, mobile and offline channels;
41.94% said they can moderately successfully unify and reuse individual customer profiles across online, mobile and offline channels;
16.13% said they are not very successful at unifying and reusing individual customer profiles across online, mobile and offline channels;
6.45% said they are not at all successful at unifying and reusing individual customer profiles across online, mobile and offline channels;