REPORT THE NEXT FRONTIER IN AD QUALITY: TARGETING …...programmatic display inventory. To establish...
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REPORT THE NEXT FRONTIER IN AD QUALITY: TARGETING ACCURACY WHAT’S INSIDE 2 WHY IS AUDIENCE TARGETING CHALLENGING? 2 HOW ACCURATE IS AUDIENCE TARGETING? 3 GREAT DISCREPANCY AMONG DATA PROVIDERS 4 TARGETING ACCURACY LEADS TO EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS 4 ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT, BUT CAN IT SCALE? 5 ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DATA QUALITY In the last year, viewability and fraud concerns have taken center stage. Significant pressure has been placed on the digital advertising ecosystem to fix these issues, and the industry swiftly responded with new viewability standards and is calling for stricter fraud controls. While advertisers, publishers, agencies and vendors have all been heavily invested in viewability and fraud, one area that has been widely overlooked is the accuracy of audience targeting. Reaching the wrong audience diminishes the performance of any type of campaign by wasting impressions and spend, just like if your ads aren’t seen or are served to bots. Audience targeting accuracy is the third component of ad quality. It’s time that agencies, advertisers and publishers demand the same accountability for audience targeting accuracy as they do for viewability and fraud. INTRODUCTION
Transcript of REPORT THE NEXT FRONTIER IN AD QUALITY: TARGETING …...programmatic display inventory. To establish...
REPORT
THE NEXT FRONTIER IN AD QUALITY:
TARGETING ACCURACY
WHAT’S INSIDE
2 WHY IS AUDIENCE TARGETING CHALLENGING?
2 HOW ACCURATE IS AUDIENCE TARGETING?
3 GREAT DISCREPANCY AMONG DATA PROVIDERS
4 TARGETING ACCURACY LEADS TO EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
4 ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT, BUT CAN IT SCALE?
5 ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DATA QUALITY
In the last year, viewability and fraud concerns have taken center stage. Significant pressure has been placed on the digital advertising ecosystem to fix these issues, and the industry swiftly responded with new viewability standards and is calling for stricter fraud controls. While advertisers, publishers, agencies and vendors have all been heavily invested in viewability and fraud, one area that has been widely overlooked is the accuracy of audience targeting. Reaching the wrong audience diminishes the performance of any type of campaign by wasting impressions and spend, just like if your ads aren’t seen or are served to bots.
Audience targeting accuracy is the third component of ad quality. It’s time that agencies, advertisers and publishers demand the same accountability for audience targeting accuracy as they do for viewability and fraud.
INTRODUCTION
201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E [email protected] T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
Audience targeting online is extremely challenging. Someone doesn’t simply raise his hand and say that he is a 35-year-old male musician who loves extreme sports, photography and hosting barbecues. Factors making it difficult to match cookies or devices to audiences include:
• Inability to use personally identifiable information • Inaccurate and outdated registration data
• Not capturing changing demographics • Multiple users on the same devices
Because publications reach a broad demographic, advertisers who wish to reach a specific audience must apply audience targeting. Even on a publisher such as People.com that is strongly associated with female readers, trying to reach a specific demographic such as females 25-34 without audience targeting would result in only 20% in-target composition.
Due to the complexities with audience targeting online, specialized data vendors power the majority of targeted media buys placed through Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), directly with publishers or any other method. Data vendors’ audience data is layered on top of media buys to guide which impressions to purchase.
Until recently, advertisers could not measure whether a campaign reached the right audience. Without oversight, many subpar data vendors emerged. Now two third-party validation services – Nielsen and comScore – are available to confirm whether a campaign hit the right demographic.
Recently, media agency Mediasmith conducted a study testing the demographic targeting accuracy of 11 data vendors and used Nielsen and comScore to validate accuracy in reaching common demographic segments – such as males 18-34 and females 25-54 – through programmatic display inventory. To establish a control, Mediasmith ran an untargeted campaign and found that it reached those common segments, on average, with 25% accuracy. Using the average performing data vendor for audience targeting, Mediasmith found it could increase in-target composition to 40%. Using the highest performing data vendor, Quantcast, Mediasmith almost tripled audience composition to 68% in-target.
WHY IS AUDIENCE TARGETING CHALLENGING?
HOW ACCURATE IS AUDIENCE TARGETING?
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68%53%
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Quantcast(High Composition)*
Quantcast
Vendor A
Vendor B
Vendor C
Vendor D (High Composition)*
Vendor D
Vendor E
Vendor G(High Composition)*
Vendor G
Vendor F
Vendor H
Vendor I
Vendor J
Control
Average Audience Targeting Accuracy in Mediasmith Display Study
1x 2x 3xNielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. comScore vCE validation mirrored these results.See appendix for Mediasmith study methodology.
People.com Audience Composition
NBC Sports Audience Composition
Source: Quantcast Measure
Gender Male 92% Female 8%
Gender Male 13% Female 87%
Age
Age <18 9%
18-24 7%25-34 21%35-44 23%45-54 22%55-64 12%65+ 4%
<18 9%18-24 7%25-34 21%35-44 26%45-54 20%55-64 11%65+ 6%
201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E [email protected] T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
Video: A similar study on a leading video platform that tested the targeting accuracy of 6 data vendors showed that one-third of vendors performed only slightly better than an untargeted media buy, adding less than 12% improvement in accuracy. Only Quantcast was able to double audience targeting accuracy.
Audience targeting can significantly increase campaign performance; however, many data vendors fail to add value.
Display: In the recent Mediasmith study, 4 of the 11 data vendors provided essentially no improvement in audience composition to blindly serving ads – only improving targeting accuracy by less than 15%. These are well-known solutions that provided almost no benefit with their audience targeting. Only 4 data providers were able to double audience targeting accuracy, with Quantcast leading the pack.
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Quantcast (High
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Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C Vendor D (High
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Vendor D Vendor E Vendor F Vendor G (High
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Vendor G Vendor H Vendor I Vendor J Control
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Baseline without targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. comScore vCE validation mirrored these results. See appendix for Mediasmith study methodology.
Mediasmith Display Test
Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor1.3x
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Quantcast (High Composition)*
Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C (High Composition)*
Vendor C Vendor D Vendor E Control
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dexe
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trol
Baseline without targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. See appendix for video inventory test methodology.
Video Inventory Test Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
1.5x
improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor
GREAT DISCREPANCY AMONG DATA PROVIDERS
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140 152 149 148
110 115 111 105 100
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Quantcast (High
Composition)*
Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C Vendor D (High
Composition)*
Vendor D Vendor E Vendor F Vendor G (High
Composition)*
Vendor G Vendor H Vendor I Vendor J Control
Acc
urac
y In
dexe
d to
Con
trol
Baseline without targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. comScore vCE validation mirrored these results. See appendix for Mediasmith study methodology.
Mediasmith Display Test
Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor1.3x
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148 148
131 126
102 112
106 100
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Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C (High Composition)*
Vendor C Vendor D Vendor E Control
Acc
urac
y In
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d to
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trol
Baseline without targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. See appendix for video inventory test methodology.
Video Inventory Test Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
1.5x
improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor
Because data
vendors’ abilities
to reach the
right target vary
significantly, it
is important to
test your data
partners.
Since audience
targeting
composition
varies depending
on campaign
and inventory
sources, test
the relative
performance of
vendors across
campaigns to
understand true
performance.
* To support campaigns in which accuracy is the main goal, such as with guaranteed GRPs, a few data vendors have developed “higher composition” optimized solutions that provide higher targeting accuracy, but at reduced scale. The results from these solutions are shown whenever available to demonstrate the highest accuracy solution offered by the vendor.
201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E [email protected] T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
With better audience targeting accuracy, advertisers get more value from every dollar spent by reaching and influencing more of the right audience. For example, a campaign targeting females 18-34 with a $5.00 CPM will result in a $22.50 eCPM if using a poor-performing data vendor that only delivers 22% in-target, such as Vendor G in the display test. Quantcast delivers against that target with 66% accuracy, which translates into a $7.58 eCPM. That’s a 3x cost savings that also allows advertisers to deliver their message to more of the right consumers.
ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT, BUT CAN IT SCALE?
In audience targeting, there is a trade-off between accuracy and scale. The more precise the targeting, the smaller the pool of people available to reach. Data vendors distinguish themselves by how well they can achieve the best of both worlds. The chart to the right shows how well vendors can achieve both accuracy and scale, based on the video study referenced earlier. While Vendor A and Quantcast outperform the pack, Quantcast further outperforms Vendor A by providing the same targeting accuracy for its standard solution at 1.7 times the scale.
Why does this matter? Without scale, advertisers reach and influence only a small portion of their target audience – not enough to drive meaningful results. This often leads to wasted spend and diminished brand perceptions as ad frequency is increased to meet campaign delivery goals.
TARGETING ACCURACY LEADS TO EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
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Performance of two vendors delivering 10MM impressions targeting females 18-34 at $5.00 CPM
In Target 66%
Vendor G
In-Target CPM: $22.50Quantcast
In-Target CPM: $7.58
22% In Target
22% In-Target 66%
In-Target
Low Performance
Top Competitor’s Performance
Quantcast’s Performance
Accuracy to Scale Relationship
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Forecasted Reach (MM)
Quantcast Vendor A
Vendor C Vendor E Vendor D
Vendor C High Comp Vendor B
Quantcast High Comp
201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E [email protected] T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
Audience targeting accuracy is just as important as viewability and fraud in ensuring campaign quality and effectiveness – and that advertisers are getting the most from their digital spend. It’s time to hold data vendors to the same standard.
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DATA QUALITY
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Test your data vendors before selecting a partner to get the quality and performance that you expect. Even some well-known solutions have poor audience targeting accuracy.
Work with vendors that have invested in improving their audience targeting capabilities across inventory sources and segments. Audience targeting accuracy varies among channels and audiences.
Confirm that your data partner can maintain targeting accuracy while delivering scale. Accuracy is just part of the equation. Many solutions with higher accuracy are significantly reach constrained.
APPENDIXMediasmith Display Test Quantcast commissioned a 3 week study with Mediasmith in Nov 2014 to test the demographic targeting accuracy of 11 data vendors on a leading DSP with brand-safe display inventory. The test controlled for as many variables as possible including flight date, duration, inventory, format and creative. Six of the most popular demographic segments were tested: M/F 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54. For validation, both Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings and comScore vCE were used to validate delivery of 100,000 impressions for each line item.
Video Inventory Test Quantcast conducted a 3 week study on a leading video platform in March 2014 to test the demographic targeting accuracy of 6 data vendors. The test controlled for as many variables as possible including flight date, duration, inventory, format and creative. Six of the most popular demographic segments – M/F 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54 – were tested on pre-roll video inventory. For validation, Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings was used to validate delivery of 50,000 impressions for each line item.
