Beyond Age & Gender: The Precision and Value of Audience-Based Solutions

While most business leaders and marketers understand the value of reaching a targeted audience, traditional “mass media” advertising solutions typically deliver a more generic and broadly-defined audience. New advertising tactics, though, have flipped the script by making it easier than ever to precisely deliver ads to even the smallest niche group of customers.

Even so, the way these audiences are targeted can still vary widely from one campaign to the next. Online advertising, as well as the rise of mobile devices and other technologies, has dramatically scaled the various data points businesses can use when targeting an audience.

The specific targeting filters used will be dependent on which data points are viewed as most effective in helping businesses define their target audience—as well as which types of data are available on specific advertising platforms.

Regardless of how this data is integrated into your targeting tactics, every business can use these enhanced capabilities to shift to a more audience-based advertising strategy.

The Limitations of Traditional Demographics

Traditional demographics like age, gender, education level, and income bracket all offer value in defining and targeting a relevant audience for your business. However, the targeting value of these data points can be elevated significantly through audience-based selling strategies that leverage behavioral and other types of data to better identify the individuals your business is trying to reach.

If you’re an outdoor adventure supplier, for example, your customers might come from a wide range of demographic backgrounds: men and women of any age, and many different income levels. An audience-based approach allows you to account for behavioral data and personal preferences when building audience profiles to be targeted through your campaigns.

Ads can be delivered based on the types of websites those consumers have visited in the past, the online searches they conduct, and the types of content they engage with on social media. With audience-based ad buying, you can tailor your online and TVE advertising more specifically to the most relevant target audience – resulting in more valuable and effective ad campaigns, since you can isolate your ad spending to ads that reach consumers who are a close match to your customer profile.

Although these targeting capabilities have long been available through online search, social media, display and other forms of online advertising, businesses can now leverage the same targeting capabilities through TVE ad campaigns—giving your business an entirely new way to think about TVE as part of your overall advertising strategy.

Expanded Targeting Tactics for a New Digital Audience

As consumers embrace multiple options for consuming TV content, new advertising tools are needed to reach this audience no matter where they go. Traditional TV viewing is now joined by on-demand content, through connected TV and streaming platforms, in providing cross-platform viewing experiences to TV consumers—which means that cross-platform ad campaigns are now a necessity.

Audience-based solutions make this possible by harnessing the insights of both first-party set-top box (STB) data, as well as second and third-party data from integrated online ad platforms. Using these deeper layers of targeting, TVE ads can be narrowed to a specific audience and then delivered across multiple different platforms based on where that audience is spending their time.

The Business Benefits of an Audience-Based Approach

Still unsure of how audience-based solutions deliver material gains to your business? Here are some of the tangible benefits that advertisers can expect from a more targeted, cross-platform approach:

• More efficient use of your advertising budget. The ability to deliver targeted messaging to your core audience creates an impactful complement to the broader brand awareness benefits of TV advertising.
• Align your brand with a wider range of high-value programming opportunities. With better audience information and cross-platform delivery to power your campaigns, your business can move away from simply counting the total number of viewers on the top-rated TV networks and focus more on the kinds of consumers being reached.
• Gain a competitive edge through exclusive access to data. When you work with a digital advertising partner that offers second and third-party audience data. For example, Cox Media can combine this information with first-party STB data to provide more comprehensive audience profiles that your competitors may not have access to.
• True cross-platform campaign integration. Create ad content and audience targeting strategies that can deliver value across multiple campaigns. Cross-platform integration breaks down silos that cause you and your advertising partners to repeat the same resource-intensive advertising processes. Instead, you can reduce your operating expenses while expanding the reach of your TV ad campaigns.

Ready to unlock new TV ad value through an audience-based approach? Cox Media’s in-house experts and powerful audience insights can help you leverage TV advertising to serve your company’s advertising goals—without breaking your budget. Contact us today to learn more.