Consumer expectations are higher than ever, and at the top of the list for many is the desire for a personalised experience while shopping online. For advertisers, deploying personalised ads while engaging consumers with the greatest propensity to take a desired action can help reduce media spend, boost conversion rates and improve campaign ROI. To maximise advertising impact and performance, a robust data-driven strategy is crucial.
Audience intelligence capabilities continue to improve, and data signals have emerged as a powerful way to re-activate, re-engage and retain target audiences. As advertisers head into a cookieless future, leveraging powerful first-party data and data signals may be the key to superior multi-channel advertising campaigns that engage and convert audiences.
The importance of building data-driven consumer journeys
Consumers are not likely to convert the first time they interact with a brand. Instead, they embark on a consumer journey that ultimately ends with a decision. For brands to maximise the likelihood that a consumer chooses its products or services instead of a competitor’s, building out data-driven consumer journeys is crucial, enabling advertisers to target the right people with the right messages at the right time and place to encourage action.
Data signals can help enhance data profiles by alerting an advertiser when a consumer in their database is actively shopping. But, for data signals to be actionable, they must be real-time. For example, a data signal could alert an advertiser that a consumer is visiting a particular web page, clicked on an email or submitted a form. This real-time data is incredibly powerful and can include activity across the web, including on competitor websites. DMS, a leading provider of data-driven digital performance advertising solutions, leverages its first-party data asset to more efficiently connect consumers and advertisers to deliver strong advertising performance.
Audience intelligence helps enhance lifetime value
Audience intelligence has positive implications for both advertisers and consumers. Collecting and utilising data, especially including real-time data, should result in a more personalised and relevant advertising experience that the consumer appreciates and that converts better for the advertiser, leading to enhanced conversion rates, campaign ROI and lifetime value. Data signals, in particular, help advertisers better engage consumers at the right time – because they provide an indication of what consumers are doing right now. The more detailed and current a data profile is for a consumer, the more personalised an experience the advertiser can provide, keeping the consumer satisfied and more likely to return and shop again.
Preparing for a cookieless world
At the advent of digital advertising, cookies were game-changers, helping advertisers target audiences more effectively. While cookies are still at play, they are being phased out, and digital advertisers need a new game plan. Not only is the cookie era coming to an end, but cookies tend to be less effective when compared to real-time data strategies because they rely primarily on what has happened in the past. A data signals programme, like one that DMS offers, gives advertisers more control and provides visibility into when consumers are actively shopping and, therefore, have a greater likelihood of converting.
Regardless of when cookies officially go away, digital advertisers are better poised for success by leveraging real-time data strategies that give them more control and more information to better target their advertising efforts.
Real-time data strategies are maximising monetisation
Real-time consumer intent data helps brands boost advertising performance in three distinct areas: re-activation, re-engagement and retention. Advertisers can maximise monetisation opportunities by focusing on all three.
- Re-activation: Instead of relying solely on cookies, data signals can alert advertisers that a consumer is actively shopping right now. By reaching consumers while they are actively in market for a product or service, advertisers have a better likelihood of reaching them at the right time to encourage action. This reactivation can also include re-activating consumer data that has been dormant, such as former customers or consumers who have inquired in the more distant past.
- Re-engagement: Consumers won’t always convert right away. Data signals help advertisers re-engage consumers who have not yet converted to draw them back to complete a desired action (like submitting a form or making a purchase). Once a consumer converts, real-time data can trigger another signal to stop re-engagement efforts, creating a more positive user experience.
- Retention: Data signals can help brands increase customer retention and LTV by alerting advertisers when current customers are back in market. Coupled with other data like a customer’s purchase history, advertisers can get their best offers or personalised recommendations in front of these customers while they are actively shopping.
Digital advertising continues to evolve, and audience intelligence is helping advertisers better pinpoint the right people with the right message at the right time and in the right place to encourage action. Data signals represent the next chapter for digital advertising, informing advertisers when their target audience or current customers are actively shopping. Leveraging data signals to re-activate, re-engage and retain audiences maximises monetisation and is helping drive the future of digital advertising.
