The Publisher s Guide to Turning Data into Gold. How to use a real-time data management platform (DMP) to engage, convert, and monetize your audience

Transcription

1 The Publisher s Guide to Turning Data into Gold How to use a real-time data management platform (DMP) to engage, convert, and

2 Executive summary Much has been written and said about publishers looking for ways to succeed in the digital world. Many had with their audience prior to the news industry moving online. For years, publishers have let third parties capture and monetize their data rather than controlling and capitalizing on it themselves to drive digital revenue growth. The pressure is not only to regain the trusted relationship with their audience but also to recoup lost revenue from these third-party middlemen who have dominated the data-driven ad exchange arena. The way supply and demand works for advertising media has changed in an era in which virtually unlimited audience data has the potential for making advertising and content increasingly targeted, tailored and personal. Advertisers are becoming more sophisticated and are increasingly demanding more granular levels of targeting. Publishers are provide only shallow data analysis (e.g., no content, semantic or deep interest analysis, nor detailed individual user such as gender. Truly insightful segments, such as those interested in purchasing new golf equipment in Manhattan and are currently in an appropriate context to buy, are the drivers of personalization and increased engagement. Most agree that with the right technology and strategy, publishers could reclaim a strong position because they have access to a tremendous amount of both structured and unstructured data. However managing and putting the data to work is one of the biggest challenges publishers face in the digital age. Managing and putting data to work is one of the biggest challenges publishers face in the digital age. The ultimate way for both large international and regional publishers to retake control of audience data and make and sophisticated segmentation enable publishers to have a 360-degree view of their users. When combined with advertising and content targeting are staggering, some of which will be highlighted within this white paper. Using the Cxense DMP, a path to managing audience data in real time becomes clear, and publishers are put in a position to target, engage, convert and monetize their audience like never before. 2

3 Introduction One of the biggest challenges facing any business that has a lot of raw audience data on its hands is figuring out how to tap into and use the data they have collected. Getting past the data overload is driving many companies, including publishers, toward finding solutions that take an almost unfathomable volume, type and source of data and make it immediately usable. All the data in the world is not useful if it is not actionable. actionable insight from this harmony to create value for publishers. That is, to understand, segment and target users with content, advertising and product promotions through an aligned multi-channel marketing strategy. The goal? To engage and monetize readers like never before. The challenge data overload For publishers, analyzing and understanding how readers consume content on a mobile, tablet or desktop is essential for every aspect of doing business: increasing reader engagement, growing advertising revenue, increasing the number of subscribers to their digital content and fundamentally, understanding audience insight beyond just advertising applications. For example, targeted advertising and content recommendations. Understanding what a also needs to be delivered and made actionable in real-time to capture audience attention and engagement while the reader is still on-site. Let s look at a scenario of the audience relationship a publisher tries to create once empowered by real user data. Imagine a 24-year-old woman from New York. Based we will call News Today, we have learned that she is interested in fashion, US politics and golf. She reads the sports section of News Today most actively and almost always clicks on articles related to golf. She is an active but non-subscribing reader of the publication, accessing the site from both an iphone 5s and desktop PC. Based on the collected analysis of her use habits, what kind of solution can help a publisher take advantage of what is known and target this user in the best way? The publishers challenge is not just about managing data to manage their audience. In fact, it is to use data to build a kind of audience relationship creating great, repeat user experiences by understanding the people who use their properties and channels. In particular, creating great contextual user experiences is key that is, providing the right information or content to a user at the exact right time and place, on the right device, based on the user s link to a workable, scalable solution. 3

4 Data Management Platform (DMP) insight. The volume of data taken in by such a platform introduces a dilemma. Even if all the data is potentially useful information, it still needs to be sorted, organized and then used, packaged and positioned in meaningful ways that enable publishers to take advantage of expanding monetization and audience-engagement opportunities. A successful and scalable DMP will sort through the data, create orderly segments and take it a step further enable companies to act on the opportunities that lie within it, all in real time.. A successful and scalable DMP will sort through the data, create orderly segments and take it a step further enable companies to act on the opportunities that lie within it, all in real time. Taking up the example of the 24-year-old New York woman again, we ask the question as to how her using the information it has gathered about her online activities. The publisher knows the woman has an active interest in golf, so she is targeted with ads from Nike for golf gear. The publication also s her a Groupon-like promotion for a weekend golf retreat. Given her avid readership, it would not be unreasonable to imagine that she would be a prime target for subscription messages to subscribe to the publication she is already reading, especially since the publication has more in-depth golf-related content behind the paywall. The publication decides to send with a discount from an online golf retailer. Based on her interaction with the content she is served, and how she responds to it, one could safely determine that golf is high atop her personal interests. Naturally, though, her behavior also reveals other interests, which enable targeting of a variety of other content. For example, she receives recommended content based on her interests, such as US politics, as well as articles about real-time trending topics, such as an article about the situation in Ukraine. Each piece of data about this user is like another piece of an expanding puzzle. The more information about this woman that a publisher has, the better the contextual content targeting, the more engagement can take place, which continues to improve the targeting and experience for the user. Importantly, this also means that one can avoid recommending pieces of content that she has already just read, or that she is proven not to engage with; all in real time and based on her current context and behavior. By removing this type of noise from the user experience, publishers are proving to dramatically increase user engagement. into the marketplace for audience data in a way that will help publishers? 4

5 What is a DMP? A DMP is a solution that at its core tries to make sense of and assign order to an overwhelming amount of data. For publishers, a DMP is a critical tool in taking back control of their own data and starting to put it to well as third-party data and performs analysis to glean usable and timely insights, as well as make these data actionable for their mission-critical applications, as well as make these data actionable for their missioncritical applications.. Using these insights, publishers are able to focus on better segmenting their audiences. Not all DMPs are created equally, of course some are little more than storage repositories that save data but do not take the next steps in data analysis that are required if valuable insight is to be extracted and applied to real-world challenges, as well as make these data actionable for their mission-critical applications.. It is critical to note that interests and intent for users varies during the day depending on the device they are using and the surroundings they are in. For example, the likelihood of our 24-year-old New Yorker purchasing discounted golf clothing many not be high during the morning rush hour on a mobile phone or during lunchtime browsing on a work desktop computer, but could be very high during the evening when she is browsing on a tablet device. A publishers and deliver targeted advertising and content recommendations that capitalize on every situation. This is where the Cxense DMP gives publishers a considerable edge with real-time audience data insights. Aggregate Segment Action A Forrester study examining the DMP landscape describes DMPs as tools that unify multi-touchpoint audience data. The example of how the 24-year-old woman can be targeted is just the beginning of how this audience data is being and can be used. That is, the future of DMPs will require greater sophistication than just managing third-party data to target audiences. DMPs will by necessity become powerful solutions for boiling down overwhelming amounts of disparate structured and unstructured data to the most critical, relevant essentials from a variety of diverse data streams and pushing the results out into multiple external targeting platforms. The marketplace is demanding this, and now successful DMPs can turn data into insights and targetable audiences that deliver accurate, predictive information about future-oriented marketing and audience segmentation. Until now, the challenge has been about seamless data ingestion and message delivery but the future will require something broader and richer that will Successful DMPs can turn data into insights and targetable audiences Publishers, as another Forrester study points out, already have audience data, but to turn that data into something The Cxense DMP solution 5

6 Capabilities Although conventional DMPs can collect structured data, very few solutions are backed by the kind of experience The Cxense DMP is built on a three-step process by which data are aggregated, segmented and actioned. Then, the Aggregate Cxense knows what types of data are most valuable to collect, taking in both structured and unstructured data from multiple sources such as websites, mobile and tablet applications, CRM, ERP, CMS, subscription data and analytics systems Cxense leads the industry when it comes to tracking user data from multiple devices Segment Cxense knows what trends, indicators, segmentation methods are most powerful to create actionable insight from the gathered data Cxense organizes and optimizes the data, and customer segmentation based on a wide variety of data points (interests, demographic, location-based, behavioral, Segment optimization capture results from targeted campaigns to update and optimize segments Segment discovery create segments based on user behavior for example all those who clicked on particular ad and article are grouped together Action Cxense makes the results easily and instantly actionable by linking to marketing tools in real time for precisely targeted communication. For example, some customers choose to use Cxense Advertising and Content solutions, while others integrate with a number of multichannel marketing tools, such as industry standard ad servers, tools, call center systems, direct mail lists and marketing automation systems, etc. actionable insight for targeted tracking across devices and sites to form a complete audience picture. Segments can be updated based on response to marketing campaigns 6

7 Cxense DMP Aggregate Segment Action model Subscription optimization Increase the number of paid digital subscribers by targeting user segments who are most likely to subscribe advertising customers but also enable you to charge higher rates for precise targeting. Deliver higher clickthrough rates on performance advertising by delivering the right ads to the right person at the right time Conversions Deliver higher conversion rates on promoted products by promoting products that are relevant to the user, on site and through multi-channel marketing campaigns Loyalty Increase loyalty to your publication by making it the news source that understands each and every one of your individual readers. Deliver personalized content based on user interests Engagement Increase page views and time on-site by engaging your users with relevant and timely content recommendations on your site and to your database the results users end up seeing recommendations are always recent, published in the last seconds, are always fresh eliminating the articles or other content that the user has just read or hasn t shown an interest in. Real-time keeps 7

8 Cxense technology Cxense has developed SaaS-based technology products with future-proof architecture in close cooperation with customers, making the product roadmap aligned with and understanding of premium publisher needs. With publishers amounts of raw data into usable and actionable intelligence. This audience insight is extrapolated from the Cxense DMP performs the magic that transforms uniform data in data out transactions into the meaningful analysis that The Cxense DMP for real-time data management enables less integration, full real-time capabilities and more accurate data than other approaches. The Cxense platform has modules and APIs for: Real-time data cubes that allow any queries with slice-and-dice on any dimension that maximize value for publishers. Big Data expertise and global leaders in audience insight, with industry-leading experience in behavioral and contextual data Cxense leads the way in the move to mobile we gather data and target content and ads, no matter what device the user is on Cxense technology is not dependent on third-party cookies for display advertising or content management The Cxense DMP infrastructure is designed for real-time performance, taking publisher requirements for marketing and advertising into account The Cxense data engine can process terabytes of data in real-time, ensuring the best results through relevancy high-performance insights The Cxense commitment to transparency and privacy means that publishers retain ownership of their own data. We never share or sell data. Never The Cxense DMP is cross-site, cross-platform and cross-device and Search 8

9 Case studies Over 250 publishers across the globe use Cxense solutions both tactically and strategically across more than 4,000 premium web and mobile sites, applications. Cxense has powered many publisher success stories across the Cxense product portfolio, including the Cxense DMP NEXT, Japan Next Co. HOME S Cxense DMP, Cxense Analytics, Cxense Advertising site lists a very wide range of properties for rent and sale anything from car parks to newly-built condominiums to Extraordinary Insight Engine. Data is extracted from user interactions on the HOME S website (every page view is such as property type, where they are interested in living, their budget and so on. The ability to collect and combine data from various sources enables a next generation type of customer relationship management a way for publishers to understand key information and preferences not only about their registered users but also about unregistered visitors to their site. This information is used to target future listings based on user preferences, and by advertisers to target their ads, allowing advertisers to submit their ads and bid prices and manage a performance-based advertising budget. 9

10 on their site. They also plan to link preference information to their marketing system to send targeted s to their users. We chose the Cxense DMP to help our strategy of improving the quality of marketing for our clients and display Conclusion The need for reining in massive amounts of data and making sense of it has never been more pressing. A number of without analyzing it, optimizing it, or making it readily actionable. The publishing industry has moved well beyond the need for data storage it needs sophisticated actionable audience insights. The Cxense DMP is unique in that it can provide immediately actionable Big Data a platform that provides unique insight across both content and advertising. Cxense DMP immediately puts the data to work to understand what the audience really wants by delivering analysis on the complete audience picture in real time. It is with this extraordinary References

11 For more information about the Cxense DMP, contact Cxense: