Audience Matters Blog
Fighting The Data Deluge at Brandworks University 2013
Author: David Dowhan, President
May 21, 2013
Over the past year, I’ve heard from clients, prospects, competitors, and partners about the amount noise in the adtech ecosystem. The words may differ slightly, but the theme is the same. Lot’s of undifferentiated vendors in the BigData space creating too many new acronyms and how this big deluge of data (both third- and first-party) should be used to improve marketing efforts.
These are two of the reasons I’m very much looking forward to speaking at LSB’s Brandworks University today as one of 21+ “professors” for the three-day event. The conference, sometimes called the TED of Marketing, addresses a theme that has always been central throughout my professional career: how to maximize the return of data. Topics include the deluge of data and its evolution as an asset, demystifying data in service to maximizing its return and how to make smarter marketing decisions, faster with the right data and analytics. The other reason I’m so excited about this opportunity is because I get to be a part of a purposefully curated event without any particular vendor-driven agenda. The purpose of the conference is to share insights and debate with colleagues who have different perspectives. It’s an opportunity to stretch your thinking beyond the agenda of your current employer.
As I’ve presented at other industry events this past year, TruSignal’s concept of breaking up the marketing funnel by campaign objective and very clearly delineating the right data to use based on your marketing objectives seems to be helping to demystify the data confusion for some. Sure I’d love to attract more clients to use TruSignal’s custom audience modeling services, but it’s critical to help better educate marketers about data and provide a better roadmap as an industry.
We continue to learn from our prospects and customers that there’s still a lot of questions about data and how it can be effectively used to help online campaigns improve and in turn help companies grow. In addition, questions continue to arise about similar value propositions in the marketplace and how to differentiate which solutions are best for which campaigns.
One example is the term “lookalike,” which is used as a catch-all term for a technique used to extend online audience reach throughout the marketing funnel. I, however, feel very strongly that there is a marked difference between a lookalike at the top of the funnel and what is really an act-alike audience at the bottom of the funnel. In addition, the supporting data used to build them varies from one end of the funnel to the other.
My presentation at Brandworks University today, "Fighting The Data Deluge: How to Find The Right Data Signals for Efficient & Actionable Audience Targeting," supports the goal of cutting through the data noise and focuses on how big data combined with predictive modeling can expand your online audience of ideal prospects.
Follow along with the conversations at the Brandworks University conference on Twitter at #Brandworks.
