Is Your Programmatic Advertising Mix Missing Something?

The Impact of Obscured Data Insights

Food doesn’t taste as good without salt, to use a metaphor. In today’s digital advertising world, data insights are becoming increasingly obscured. It’s like cooking in a kitchen without salt.

The Problem with Traditional Data Providers

Do you know how this is affecting your programmatic advertising strategy? You may think your traditional providers have plenty of data feeding the beast. But, in many ways, they are limited by the nature of their systems. Portions of the data being used are based on modeled, old, incomplete, or deliberately incorrect information. Do you remember the email address you used 10 years ago to sign up for a free trial on a website? You’ve never checked it. You probably didn’t give the right phone number and likely didn’t even remember it existed until I just mentioned it. Yes, those are all part of the databases that are driving programmatic targeting and algorithms. You need to take insights with a grain of salt.

The Issue of Siloed Data

Siloed data is a big issue. Pulling data from multiple places makes it difficult to create a unified model that will work across platforms. Algorithms can be biased, discriminatory, and lack transparency. See the data issues mentioned above. When algorithms are built using sketchy data and obscure how they operate, it is difficult to trust them. Now, this isn’t to say that all data or algorithms are bad. But it is important to understand the limitations before we add anything new to a healthy digital media mix.

Introducing Commerce Data

Commerce data is an avenue to get a wealth of much more accurate information into your targeting. Think of commerce data as a high-quality finishing salt that enhances your programmatic advertising. E-commerce sites now offer on-site advertising opportunities. This allows marketers to use their first-party information in audience targeting. Think for a minute about your own shopping behaviors and what it says about you. Then, extrapolate that out to your own target audiences. Yes, that’s right. Their audience targeting is based on purchase and intent signals that are grounded in real consumer behavior. It’s “food for thought” as you consider your programmatic advertising strategy and which partners you choose to be a part of it.