Behavioral Targeting – A potential DSP strategy for media campaigns

Published on: 15 February 2016 Last Updated on: 29 May 2021
content rally

Aren’t you happy that you are finding the perfect leads that automatically convert into customers in your digital media campaigns? Behavioral targeting, a recent technique in digital advertising, has enabled marketers to achieve 90% success from their campaigns.

Although the name itself tells about the kind of marketing strategy behavioral targeting is, let’s find out more…

Behavioral targeting effectively uses a customer’s past activity while displaying an ad. While matching an ad with the user, the media planning software uses non-personal and anonymous information from the user.

The fact that identifying user behavior is not just limited to the desktop makes media planning software a versatile technology. There are some mobile media platforms that help companies to target users depending on their mobile search patterns. One of the key factors in mobile tracking is where the users are located when they conduct a particular online search.

How behavioral targeting functions

The agencies use demand-side platforms (DSPs) for buying the advertisements across the networks in real-time. As there is media software that can track the user’s IP address and content type, the user browses using deep package inspection
(DPI), and the marketer is able to identify the ad appropriate for the user. The marketers then buy relevant ads via real-time bidding (RTB) and put them up on the websites. This media planning software allows marketers to focus on ads for granularity specified audiences. The tool uses different kinds of data to show the right ad to the right audience.

Information marketer’s use for behavioral targeting:

  • The demographic information that the user has shared with partner websites
  • Data extracted by cookies from the websites visited by the consumer
  • General assumptions based on the types of websites visited by the user
  • Social networking sites for collecting data for this kind of targeting

Types of behavioral targeting

Several technologies and approaches are used in behavioral targeting. Every company in space has its set of nomenclature and approach. However, the entire gamut of behavioral targeting can be roughly divided into three categories:

  1. Targeting based on affinity

Also known as traditional targeting, the tracking is based on the information the users take in. Here, the user is tracked within a particular category. By consistent consumption trait, the tracking is based on the interest the user shows in web search. This way, advertising is based on unique profiles of users rather than by focusing on the current search that the user has keyed in.

  1. Re-targeting

This tracking is simpler than affinity-based targeting. Here, the user has already visited a website, made some pre-decision stage activities, but has not completed the action. Usually, users get tagged through cookies and they can be targeted again via some cross-selling prospects. According to the user’s latest interest, an advertisement can be tailor-made using re-targeting.

  1. Predictive targeting

Predictive targeting is based on a series of data collected both, online and offline. The first step is gathering data online— analyzing user behavior through their clicks and real-time internet surfing. The user gets monitored through the websites they visited the amount of time spent on each website, etc. The first profile of the user gets created through online monitoring. Complete data is then collected by some kinds of socio-demographic survey, which provides complete information on the lifestyle and interests of the user.

Predictive technology is used to analyze the survey data (offline) with performance data (online) to complete the profile. Thus, there is the extrapolation of socio-demographic data of the sample population to a larger user base, using the similarities in the behavioral patterns observed in the sample users to a larger population.

Behavioral targeting is definitely a valuable media planning software for digital advertising. However, you need to beef your strategies up with adequate tactics. Start with the identification of the right audience for a certain media buy, the required accomplishment of the campaign, and consequently its appropriate channels and communication media. Within this framework, identify if behavioral targeting can achieve better or not.

Author Bio:

Preethi Vagadia is currently a Senior Business architect with the Service operations practice at a well-known IT Industry in Bangalore. She has worked in several process improvement projects involving multi-national teams for global customers. She has over 8 years of experience in mortgage technology and has successfully executed several projects in logistics management, logistics integration, reverse logistics, content management system software, warranty software, and programmatic solutions.

Abdul Aziz Mondol is a professional blogger who is having a colossal interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, he loves to share content related to business, finance, technology, and the gaming niche.

View all posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

Search Engine Marketing

FIRST BUSINESS? Here Are SEM Tricks Which Actually Works

Despite being one of Southeast Asia's smallest countries, Singapore has a highly advanced economy.   The country is a consistent global business hub, with many multinational companies setting up headquarters there. One primary reason is its strong economy, but its strategic location also plays a key role. This location allows for a unique cultural mix of Asian, European, and American influences. This advantage makes Singapore a top international business community. Over the years, competition has intensified, making marketing more critical than ever. Working with an SEM agency in Singapore is now standard practice. Many businesses are trying to gain an edge over their competitors. Creating strong Search Engine Marketing campaigns is vital to your company’s success.   However, doing this is easier said than done. If you're new to SEM techniques, here are a few tips to help your small business stand out.  Tips on Doing Search Engine Marketing for Your Small Business Here are some basic tips to begin your SEM journey, whether for a new business or job.  Choose the Right Keywords Search engines use keywords to match web pages with user searches. So, choosing the right ones is crucial.   Doing so ensures your site reaches your target audience. When using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, keyword optimization is vital to ranking high in search results.   Various tools can aid in keyword research. With them, you can analyze competition, search volume, and relevance. Doing this ensures that your investments are well spent.  Create Quality Content Content is king in any marketing strategy, and Search Engine Marketing is no exception. A visually appealing ad or website is important to catch attention.   But your content is what keeps users engaged and interested. Creating valuable, high-quality content shows your expertise and credibility.   As a result, users feel inclined to trust your brand. With this, you can generate more leads and boost conversions.  Know Your Competition Consider your business, audience, and objectives when creating a Search Engine Marketing plan.   But also look at the bigger picture and analyze your competition. Working with an SEM agency in Singapore can provide more insights with professional tools and expertise.   Competitive analysis shows you what others are doing. You can see what methods work and find ways to differentiate yourself.  Monitor Your Strategy A common misconception about Search Engine Marketing is that it’s over after executing your campaign.   However, like SEO, Search Engine Marketing is an ongoing process.   It’s not just a one-time strategy that you can leave alone. Consistently monitor your strategy to see if it’s generating the desired results.   Technology is constantly evolving, and new SEM practices are coming over time.   Staying updated ensures you don’t miss out on potential opportunities to boost returns.  Post March Update SEM for Beginners Now that we are done with the basics, here is how you can do SEM right with the current Google Update.  Search Engine Marketing (SEM), it’s time to step up your game. After Google updated in March this year, keeping up with the changing times and how things are done is crucial.   Here are seven tricks to help you do SEM with the new Google update.  First things first: Mind your keywords  Don’t forget that the recent update has made Google much smarter at understanding user intent. This means that you might need to change your old keyword strategy.   Go through your list of keywords and find those that match as closely as possible to what your target audience is looking for.   Lastly, long-tail keywords have become extremely important because they cater to potential customers typing in exactly what they want.  Ad Copy  Next, let’s discuss ad copy. Google is now favoring relevant and engaging ads. Your ad copy must be crisp and clear and speak your customers' language.   Don’t beat around the bush; be very specific with your messaging. Highlight what sets your product apart from the competition (if possible, use dynamic text in your ads for added personalization).  User Experience  Another factor you should remember is the landing page experience after this update. Google now considers how users engage with a website when they land on it after clicking on an ad.   A quick, mobile responsive site with easy navigation is critical to keep a tab on here. Check if your pages are optimized for mobile viewing (they should also load quickly across devices).   Also, ensure the context matches pre-click expectations and provides visitors with a seamless user experience through their conversion journey.   SEM Tools  Budgeting is another area you need to be strategic about. The update has more advanced bidding available now, so make sure you make the most of what you spend using those tools.   Consider Google’s automated bidding strategies, for example. They do all the heavy lifting and ensure you achieve your desired goal without constant manipulation.   Never Stop Researching!  Also, continue testing and trying new things. The digital marketing industry changes almost daily – get comfortable being uncomfortable, especially after this last update, as some things may remain unnoticed for longer than others.  Following these tactics and remaining flexible, you can use the March update to increase your SEM efforts and results. Keep testing and learning, and you’ll learn the most.  Read Also: 8 Key SEO Strategies for E-Commerce Websites Required Content Marketing for Your E-Commerce Curious About Search Engine Optimization? Let’s Get to Its Roots Online Marketing: Selling Your Product And Services

READ MOREDetails
Digital Marketing

Exploring The Different Types Of Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital marketing is the process of marketing services and produces using digital technology with the primary aim of reaching out to the target audience. Although you might know this already, digital marketing isn’t restricted to the internet, hence can be done on any other digital medium including display advertising and mobile phones. Some of the most popularly used digital marketing methods include search engine marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click, social media marketing, and SMS marketing among others. This article explores the various types of digital marketing methods in use today. 1. Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is the process of marketing/promoting services and products through social media. With billions of people logging into various social networking platforms in a day, social media has become a marketing haven for marketers.  Popular networking platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have made it possible for marketers to target specific audiences. This has led to increased output and conversion of target audiences into potential and even loyal customers.  LinkedIn, for example, is specially designed for B2B marketing while Instagram plays perfectly for the 'visual' business. There are different approaches in which one can use to target audiences on social media.  Facebook, for example, provides users with both free and paid advertising options, all of which can be profitable when appropriately implemented.  Some understanding of social media marketing is however needed to make the most out of this strategy. 2. Email Marketing: Email marketing is one of the most efficient and oldest types of digital marketing strategies in use to date. The best thing with email marketing is the fact that marketers get to communicate directly with their target audiences and customers, which again increases conversion rates. Email marketing is also known to build trust and customer loyalty, one of the reasons it has remained relevant to this date.  There is however more to email marketing than merely sending a couple of promotional emails and newsletters to an emailing list. A successful Email Marketing campaign begins by finding ids that are active and operational. One of the best ways to connect with your target audiences is on the professional social media handle. LinkedIn. Most brands and agencies understand that working with a credible Linkedin email finder can help them reach out to potential or prospective sales leads. This is something that software development agencies usually do a lot of. They can browse through designations on LinkedIn and ensure that their pitch is directly addressed to professionals that have decision-making abilities. While you need to be really good at creating eye-catching and captivating emails, you still need to build a credible emailing list. This is among the toughest things an email marketer has to do to make the marketing campaign a success. Nonetheless, collecting email addresses through user subscriptions and having audiences sign up for newsletters, coupon codes, etc. are some of the credible ways to collect email addresses. 3. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing: Commonly known as SEO, search engine optimization is one of the popular digital marketing strategies today.  SEO involves optimizing websites and pages for both search engines and organic visitors. Some of the key areas that marketers and website owners have to focus on when optimizing their sites include keyword research and analysis, link building, and the creation of unique and relevant content. Done correctly, an SEO campaign can see a page gaining higher ranks on Google, Bing, and other search engines, with the reward being increased exposure to the target audience.  A properly executed SEO plan can see your page/business show up on the top pages of a search result. Search engine marketing, SEM, involves taking on campaigns and strategies to increase traffic to a web page or site. It covers both SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) like this, whereby the web page received increased traffic through both unpaid and paid means. 4. Content Marketing: Content marketing works very differently from other marketing strategies. It employs a strategic approach that mainly focuses on creating relevant, valuable, consistent, and informative content that is distributed to help attract, inform, and retain target audiences. Thanks to content marketing, the target audience can make an informative decision on a product/service, hence one of the best ways to drive profitable customer action.  The content can be either in the form of text and articles published both on the site and blogs, video, and image content. It is also an ongoing process that involves creating fresh and unique content each time. Although a marketing strategy, experts recommend creating content to promote the brand or product without necessarily asking the target audience to make a purchase. The content simply needs to be engaging and enriching to help viewers make the right decision on the product. 5. Influencer Marketing: This is slowly becoming a popular marketing strategy today. As the name suggests, influencer marketing involves using industry experts or social media influencers to help market a product or brand. This could be a celebrity or another well-known person with thousands of followers on their social sites. All the individual needs to do is vouch for your brand, or simply promote your product on their social media pages. Most companies use these influencers to help give away discount codes, coupons, and prize draws. Influencer marketers mostly prefer using their Facebook profiles, YouTube Channels, and Instagram to promote the said product. Although a short-term marketing strategy, influencer marketing can help drive more traffic to your site, a factor that can help increase conversions and sales. 6. Mobile Advertising: With almost everyone owning a phone or at least a smartphone, mobile marketing is slowly taking shape. SMS marketing with SMS broadcast services and in-app advertising have become popular ways to promote products. Although you do not need a mailing list for in-app advertising, you certainly need one for SMS marketing. Many companies today use SMS marketing to send coupon codes, special offers, and even newsletters to their target audiences. These are just but some of the popular digital marketing strategies in use today.  Done correctly, some of these strategies can help your business grow while building a huge following. While you might be able to implement all these by yourself, it would be advisable to have an experienced professional handle all optimizations and marketing strategies. This way, you will be guaranteed better results and even have enough time on your hands to handle more serious business matters. Finding an expert in all these can however be an intimidating task. Thanks to the internet, you should be able to find a reputable and results-oriented company to help take care of all these.  You can even invest in paid digital advertising strategies such as influencer marketing and pay-per-click to get a head start with increased traffic and visibility online. Read Also: How To Integrate Email Marketing With SEO 4 Points To Consider When Creating A Great Content Marketing Strategy Today

READ MOREDetails
Sales

Cold Calling Script for Successful Sales Persons

Cold calls are still of great importance even in the modern virtual world. If you are looking for business, one of the most effective sales tactics is cold calling. It is part of the outbound marketing strategy for your business and can deliver great results. A recent survey by DiscoverOrg on 1000 sampled senior executives in the IT industry reveals that 60% of them attended an event or took an appointment after receiving an unsolicited email or cold call. If you fear cold calls, then these tips will not help you to eradicate your fear. However, they will give you a more successful experience in making cold calls. Focus on the Goal Most beginners think that cold calling only deals with making the sale. However, this is not the case. It deals with getting an opportunity to make a sell. The primary reason behind making a cold call is setting an appointment for making the pitch. You can use a cold calling script to help you focus on the goal. Research Your Prospects and Market Before Making the Cold Call Your cold call has to target the right audience. Market research can help you to focus on the right audience. Gather a lot of information about the company or individual you will be calling in advance. This step will give you a significant advantage of being in a position to talk about their business and needs when you make the call. Gartner Group states that an enterprise that has an average of 100 to 500 employees will have approximately seven people making the purchase decisions. Therefore. It is critical to connecting with the right individuals if you need success in your cold calls. Leverage Contacts on Social Media to Enhance Your Chances of Connecting Statistics from Vorsight reveal that if you share a LinkedIn group with the person you are calling, you have a probability of 70% of making a successful cold call. What applies to LinkedIn can also stand to the other social media platforms. You can increase your prospects of receptiveness when you are connected with your audience in social media. Therefore, make sure that you work towards establishing of extending your presence on social media. Prepare Opening Statements for Your Call It is good to organize your thoughts before making a call as this will assist you to avoid the common mistakes while opening the conversation. Making such errors can make the individual you are calling to terminate your call. At this point, the cold calling script comes in handy. This document should act as a guide, and you don’t have to read it out. What Should Be in The Opening Statement of the Cold Call It is essential to organize your conversation on the cold call in a logical manner. You need a greeting, an introduction, reference point that talks about the prospects, advantages of your products and services, and lastly a transition to the dialogue or question. Prepare a Script for the Remaining Section of the Call Put down the benefits of your products or services and reasons that will make your prospects to buy them. Put down some of the possible objections and how you will answer them. It is easy to meander or leave something out if you don’t have a cold calling script. Once more, you will not be reading out the script when you call. The most important thing is to prepare a framework for your cold call in advance. Be ready to answer tough questions about the products and services you are selling.  Forbes Insights report that 58% of potential buyers assert that sales representatives cannot adequately respond to their questions. You can get yourself out of this script by preparing an excellent cold calling script. Request for an Appointment During the Cold Call Set the appointment that you request during the conversation at a specific time. For instance, you could ask the prospect whether 11:00 a.m. would be good for him/her. You could also ask your audience whether you can meet them the following week. It is good to get your prospects committing to a meeting in your initial conversation. Don’t leave it vague because this will necessitate a second call for setting up the meeting. The phone call may never take place if you are unable to get to the prospect. Note That Gatekeepers Are Allies and Not Foes Remain polite to anyone who picks up the call or whoever guards the inner sanctum when making the cold call. Have strategies that will make the gatekeeper to come on your side. You could even ask something like ‘I am not sure whether you will be able to assist me?’ and he/she will give you the info that you require like the name of the person you need to talk to or the best time of contacting the prospects. You also need to learn the names of the gatekeeper and remain friendly during the call. Send Your Prospects Unique and Small Promotional Items to Smooth Your Way for the Cold Call This step will break the ice and make the brand to stand out from the crow. Sending out such promotional items will prepare the way for a successful cold call. A question like ‘are you the one who sends me this’ from the prospect may seem to be unnecessary or cheesy but it works well. If Possible, Do the Cold Call Late in the Afternoon or Early Morning The best time to reach the decision-maker directly is late evening or early morning. Research also reveals that Thursday is the best day for cold calls and Wednesday comes in as the second. The same research reveals that Tuesday is the worst but this can vary from one person to another. Remain Persistent 80% of new sales will come after you make the fifth contact yet most salespersons give up after making the second call. Don’t be the kind of person who gives up so easily. It is good to learn to try again if you really want to make a sale. Above all, practice, practice, and keep on practicing and you will become an expert in cold calling. You will always get better even if you find no fun in making cold calls. With constant practice, you will develop effective selling techniques. Therefore, get your script ready and the call list and begin to reach out to your phone. There are several people out there who would like to do business with you but you need to let them know about your brand first. Read Also: FinTech Is Making It Easier To Shop The World’s Biggest Sales This Is Why Social Media Is Essential In The B2B Sales Process 5 Actionable Mobile Marketing Tips That Drive Sales

READ MOREDetails