At the time, of course, few online marketers even understood search retargeting, let alone used it. Yet, as word of its power spread, more and more users adopted it until there was a stampede of ad networks and DSPs eager to include search retargeting among their offerings.

There’s nothing new about this. It’s what business gurus call the “law of comparative advantage” — as soon as someone sets up a profitable lemonade stand, another person sets up another across the street offering a different flavor, followed by yet another contender offering snacks, and so on.

Keyword-Level Search Retargeting Vs. Keyword-Only Segments

Unfortunately, just as in our lemonade stand analogy, these new converts were not actually mirroring the original tool. Instead of practicing true keyword-level search retargeting, most were employing keyword-only data sets packaged into traditional audience segments. Legacy companies that already had revenues in the display business went to their data brokers and asked for audience segments built exclusively from searched keywords from their publisher network.

As a result of these keyword-only audience segments, one of the most effective behavioral targeting solutions in recent history — capable of generating significant performance lift for direct response and branding campaigns alike — became awash in misunderstandings.

Many of the marketers who’ve tried what they believe to be search retargeting are underwhelmed and cynical about its reach because they haven’t been exposed to a technology that views and manages keywords as they were intended. They have not leveraged keywords the way search marketers always have — one keyword at a time at the keyword level.

Collective misperceptions aside, the truth is that search retargeting can deliver unparalleled precision and insight.

Keywords: The Great Advertising Game Changer

So, just how do you practice true search retargeting? Let’s start with keywords. The words people type, search, and read are arguably the single greatest window into their interest or intent. Every search marketer and company investing in search knows this; there’s no arguing that keywords have changed advertising forever.

Search terms broadcast where people are in their thought processes, and whether they’re considering something months from now or minutes from now. Is the consumer early in their buying cycle or close to a final decision? Is their evaluation window minutes long or months long? Are they predisposed to your brand or are they favoring a competitor? The keywords that people search provide genuine “information” – data with context.

Search marketers attack these questions on a keyword-by-keyword basis. They bid, message, and optimize differently based on the performance of specific keywords or phrases. The intent signal is precise and high-value. But, a keyword or keyword phrase is a glimpse into a specific moment in time — and smart search marketers understand the difference between real keyword-level search retargeting and using keyword-only segments being served up under the name, “Search Retargeting.”

Let’s examine the difference. As search phrases go, [pizza coupon 85310] at 5:00 PM is a powerful message to a pizza company at 5:10 PM. Now, imagine that data mixed into a segment of people who have searched on the following keywords sometime in the last 30 days: [Pizza Coupon 85310], [Best Pizza], [Pizza], [Pizza near Arcadia]. The same opportunity to hit that consumer has been lost.

Let’s be clear about this: placing identical bids for every impression with no insight into what term was searched or when, then optimizing the segment as a single group unit — as most segment-based DSPs and ad networks do today — is the opposite of effective.

More importantly, it does not qualify as search retargeting. True search retargeting can identify, bid, and optimize every keyword searched behind every impression. It can identify which keywords are driving the conversions and report this with transparency.

The characteristics of search retargeting solutions capable of transcending traditional behavioral display include: keyword-level bidding, keyword-level recency, keyword-level reporting, and dynamic keyword management in real-time.

5 Keys To Keyword Level Search Retargeting Success

1. First off, resist the urge to overtarget out of the gate. Start instead with a broad keyword set. Why? Because it’s more effective to start with a large keyword set and work down, as opposed to a specific list that you struggle to scale up.

Also important: Use a combination of keyword tactics such as branded terms, competitors’ terms, lower funnel phrases, early process terms, and upper funnel and lower funnel keywords. Let the data tell you which phrases and words are performing the best, then shave down the campaign to the highest-performing keywords.

2. Get the pixel down early and leverage your existing audience for keyword discovery. When people fill out a form or make a purchase on a client site, select companies may maintain an extensive history of searches performed by these customers over the last 30 days. Is there a common denominator? What terms were your visitors searching on in the days or hours before coming to your site? Don’t discount what might appear to be useless or unrelated data. Sometimes a phrase or word that appears meaningless at first may turn out to have a specific significance once you dig into it.

3. Don’t ignore the huge population segment searching via direct navigation to credible review sites and blogs. Keyword-driven display can extend beyond just the words that are searched. Keyword contextual capabilities allow you to generate impressions to an audience viewing content that contains specific match phrases. When managed properly, this is a highly effective use of keyword driven display.

Consider that someone interested in buying a new car might visit one of many automobile review sites, and because they’ve gone directly to that source to read the content, they haven’t left a “keyword searched” thumbprint. But, if you’re using a solution with keyword contextual capabilities, then you are able build out your keyword list to target people reading content that contains exact, specific phrases. That way, you can target anyone reading a relevant article. Combine that with keyword search retargeting and you’ve got a seriously powerful tool on your hands.

4. Instead of trying to outsmart the algorithm, make friends with it. Remember, there are sophisticated algorithms built in programmatic platforms that are analyzing thousands of data points. Is this a substitute for human oversight? No, absolutely not — but by starting broad, leveraging look-alikes and allowing auto optimizations, you’re working with the algorithm instead of opposing it. In fact, it’s often the optimization changes and keyword additions to a campaign that are the most surprising and present marketers with those coveted “Aha” moments. Embrace your automated co-pilot.

5. Choose the right attribution model. If you don’t, your definition of campaign success is highly subjective. What’s driving sales/leads/brand engagement? Make sure you have performance-based goals that include full funnel attribution, so the end result is counted whether an ad was actually clicked on or not.

I could write an article on this topic alone. I think I can safely speak for most display professionals when I say to avoid any model that includes click-only last touch methodologies. In the end, you end up wasting valuable advertising dollars, optimizing to a metric that may be damaging to your brand, and ultimately produce fewer sales and leads.

Employing Search Retargeting Profitably

Search retargeting remains the same exciting and enriching marketing tool it was always promised to be. But, to employ it profitably, marketers must practice clean and accurate keyword-level search retargeting instead of muddying the process with keyword-only segments. Only then will its ability to boost performance for direct response and branding campaigns fully materialize for the marketers smart enough to use it.

Until recently, Google has dominated search. It has been the main stomping ground for consumers looking to buy products, visit sites, or conduct research.

However, the nature of search is changing, especially on mobile devices.

My own search behavior is a prime example. As a frequent traveler, I go straight to Kayak.com to search for flights. When I’m looking to buy a consumer product, I often sidestep Google entirely and go right to Amazon, eBay or PriceGrabber.

Recent research proves that I’m not alone in this and that consumer search behavior is evolving.

According to comScore, searches conducted on traditional search services — a category that is dominated by Google – declined 3 percent in the second half of last year. Meanwhile, searches on topical sites — known as vertical search — climbed 8 percent. In fact, The New York Times recently reported that Amazon maintains a larger share of shopping searches than Google does.

While vertical search has been steadily growing for years, the increase in Web addresses and the rise of mobile technology are key causes of the recent spike in growth.

At Magnetic, we remember what you’ve been searching for and use that to figure out which display ad to show you, so we are constantly considering the evolution of search behaviors across screens and what it means for marketers and publishers. What we’ve noticed is that searchers tend to conduct searches for products in three distinct stages:

Initial Search

Searches made on search engines – also known as core search – represent a large portion of consumer search behavior at 8.3 billion searches/month (as of February 2013).

When consumers begin their search quest, a common behavior is to initiate their online journey by visiting a core search engine such as Google. At this point, search queries are typically generic terms like “laptop computer” or “travel tips for Europe.” Potential customers at this stage are not planning to make a purchase or even looking for a specific product – they are instead exploring their options or looking for broader information.

Specific Search

As people explore the options provided by Google, they quickly move out of the search engine and visit topical sites – such as Best Buy or Apple – and carry out specific searches. Although the initial search activity often originates in Google, a majority of the follow-up searches – “specific searches” – have shifted to vertical and topical sites.

According to Google, in just five years, the Internet has gone from 1 trillion Web addresses to 30 trillion. With the addition of many more top-level domains coming over the next year, that explosion is continuing unabated. With so many sites and so much information at consumers’ fingertips, it’s increasingly common for users to skip search engines all together and conduct their specific searches within vertical or topical sites.

During this phase, data plays a key role for advertisers. Search terms and search patterns during the consideration process create important opportunities for marketers to engage consumers.

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land recently told The New York Times, “You have millions of people a day saying exactly what they want, and if you’re an advertiser, it’s a beautiful vehicle.”

This window of opportunity enables marketers to influence brand preference before consumers make their final decision.

Specific searches are also becoming more popular with the rise of smartphones. For example, consumers often go straight to apps like Weather.com, Yelp, Kayak or ESPN. In some instances, mobile apps eliminate the need for search all together and push information out to consumers such as flight delays or news headlines.

Apps are both Google’s biggest threat and greatest opportunity (lest we forget, Google owns half of the smartphone traffic through Android.)

Revised Search

Another common occurrence is the revised search phase in which consumers often return to Google. They come equipped with a revised search based on information they’ve gathered across apps, vertical and topical sites.

In the example of a laptop computer search, they might revise their search to “HP Pavilion dv6t-7000.” At this point, they have most likely conducted searches across many sites, over minutes, hours, days or even weeks. Unfortunately, by this phase, the retargeting and influence window of opportunity has already passed.

Although the initial search may begin in Google, vertical and branded sites are on Google’s heels with an increasingly larger share of searches. And, mobile apps will emphasize the trend.

If you agree with our “three stages of search,” then you’ll probably also agree that the most valuable time to reach someone is in the initial or specific search stages, depending on how far down the purchase funnel you want to reach someone. If you wait all the way until someone is conducting their revised search, then you only have one variable to compete on: price. Not many of us want to be in that position.

The good news is that we as marketers can develop strategies that align specifically with this changing consumer behavior. For publishers and e-commerce players, this means you can develop product offerings to take advantage of the data under your roof.

While Google isn’t going anywhere, the way it’s used has changed. As a result, other publishers will chip away at Google’s market share, creating an opportunity for advertisers to reach audiences at the ripest time, using the proper search data and consumer touch points.

Display: Audience Buying In Prime Time

When it comes to display, it’s obvious that the driving force behind its growth is data.

Gerry Bavaro, Chief Strategy Officer of Resolution Media, says, “Audience-based planning and innovation in display ad formats are two main factors to growth.” Bavaro explains audience planning and buying even further, citing that targeting capabilities across ad exchanges and growing marketplace-based media (e.g., Facebook) are responsible for the continued rise.

The second factor that Bavaro highlights is innovation in display ad formats, including rich media, technology platforms and processes for powering dynamic creative. Bavaro adds, “The right audience, right time and context are just part of the display value chain; rich media display ads and more relevant, personalized messaging has boosted growth and performance in display advertising.”

Overall, the biggest player in display’s growth is data: how it’s used, when it’s used and why it’s used. As CMOs and agency partners consider audience insights, attribution and analytics, they will gain a better understanding of their display investment — especially in the area of ad targeting. Additionally, attribution could play a significant role in increasing digital display dollars over time.

Video: Bridging The Gap Between Data & Branding

The IAB also reported that the number of video ad impressions bought within real-time bidding (RTB) exchanges has doubled over the past year. Greg Smith, General Manager of VideoHub Marketplace, credits RTB growth and the available analytics as reasons for growth in video advertising.

Smith states, “Some marketers want to buy video much in the same way they buy display ads, while others prefer to buy video the same way they do for TV. The more media buying options we give marketers, the more comfortable they will be and the more the industry wins.”

The combination of video and data-driven advertising is a reason that we are seeing more brand dollars utilize data. Smith explains, “Targeting data can be used in conjunction with video advertising to create a strong halo brand effect around more direct response-oriented search and display campaigns. Marketers often divide budgets and objectives into branding and direct response, but online video can bridge the gap with more targeted branding messages.”

Aside from data, there is also the cultural shift that consumers are spending more time with tablets, mobile phones and laptops. According to Smith, “It’s getting harder each day for brand marketers to reach audience segments with just TV alone.” A Nielsen research study commissioned by the IAB earlier this year showed that online video ads scored higher than TV ads in terms of brand recall, message recall and ad likeability.

Deep analytics and metrics within the video channel have helped to prove its worth. For example, VideoHub created a metric called eQ^TM score, which helps marketers understand the quality of video ad inventory on a publisher’s site by measuring viewability, player size and time spent with a video ad.

Search: The Leading Source Of Data & Insights

Display, mobile and social advertising have all led to the growth in search advertising. Search is not just a bottom funnel conversion engine; while ad dollars are still being allocated to search advertising, marketers are also leveraging it for research and display advertising, such as search retargeting.

Joel Nierman, Marketing and Media Director at Critical Mass, calls search “the very first form of behavioral targeting.” Nierman adds, “It isn’t that display and interactive units are redefining search; rather, display and interactive advertising are now leveraging the direct search data and inferred insights as another source of behavioral data.”

Nierman says, “Mobile and social have helped search expand beyond Google and Bing and impact search simply as another data layer combination. They can be powerful allies for search because mobile and social are also self-declared data: What data is in their social profile? What content have they posted and what apps have they downloaded?”

Search will continue to maintain a significant share of ad spending. However, the real opportunity in search advertising can be found in how marketers choose to leverage it, and smart marketers will see the value beyond the big search engines.

From what I’ve seen and heard from these industry experts, it’s no secret that data is the largest contributing factor to digital growth. Digital should continue on a positive curve as more marketers embrace data and leverage it across channels. Explosive growth is still to come.

More spend is better? Garbage! Smarter spending is better.

Over the last two years, I have discussed why marketers should cut their site retargeting budget, how programmatic marketing executions can change retargeting forever and, in a recent iMedia article, why retargeting is fundamentally broken.

But, these are just my opinions; and so, the team at Chango refreshed the Retargeting Barometer, asking more than 50 marketers and agencies what they really think of retargeting today.

Buying Retargeting Directly

The first surprise for me was the rate at which marketers are moving from buying retargeting through their agency to buying it directly from vendors (58%).

About 7 years ago, I was running the European arm of a major ad server, and we were just beginning to see the same type of pattern. Our business was 80%+ agencies, but the incoming leads were nearly all brands — and now the majority of ad server accounts are held by the brands.

The reason? Marketers want control of their own data, and they also want consistency in these core programs, even if they part ways with their agency.

That’s troubling news for agencies, who are already struggling to find new ways to prove their value in this rapidly changing ecosystem. But, as I often help agencies to understand, all is not lost for them — many marketers still need the execution and creative services that agencies bring. If agencies begin to realize that clients want smarter buying, not “more” buying, there are other ways for them to win, too (as outlined in the iMedia article above).

Email Retargeting: The Great, Big Missed Opportunity

At industry events, I will often ask the audience how many are using email retargeting — and I’ve yet to ever see a room where the response is more than 10%!

Email retargeting is simple: someone receives your email, is cookied and added to your retargeting pool — this allows the marketer to retarget them with display ads just as they do with site retargeting.

If you tag your emails correctly, you can show a custom display ad to each individual depending on what email they interacted with. Given that there is no additional cost or technology involved with this tactic, it never ceases to amaze me how infrequently it is used.

Search Retargeting Has Well & Truly Arrived

For clarity, search retargeting is the idea that an individual has performed a search on Google, Yahoo or Bing, but not yet visited your site. They are expressing the right intent; and so, we target them on behalf of clients with a display ad to win their business.

Of the Barometer’s respondents, 45% reported using search retargeting now — with 92% saying it was increasing revenue and 68% reporting greater on-site engagement. What was interesting was that a whopping 50% are also using it for brand awareness. Given that there are no restrictions on using competitor terms, 58% are sneakily pilfering directly from their competitors.

Budgets Are Getting Bigger – But That Worries Me

Not a single respondent reported that their budget for site retargeting or search retargeting would be decreasing over the next 12 months. I should be delighted; but actually, this worries me.

I worry that, with site retargeting, in particular, marketers are going to increase their budgets for all the wrong reasons — because the wool is being pulled over their eyes about what site retargeting is actually doing — rather than because they are using a proper scientific measure to look at the incremental value. We shall see where the industry shakes out on this one.

Let’s Welcome FBX To The Party

Since their launch late last year, FBX have done a great job of making noise (supported greatly by the 13 of us that were chosen as early, named PMD partners), and marketers have certainly listened.

For the first few months, it was the retargeting companies that dominated the space — given that their contracts with brands often allowed them free reign over where they placed ads and what creative ad units they used — it was a no-brainer, really.

This is at least partly responsible for all but one marketer surveyed reporting that their FBX budget would be staying the same, or increasing, over the year to come; but, I bet with the upcoming launch of newsfeed content being added to FBX, Chango’s next refresh of the Barometer will show an even higher percentage increasing their spend.

To Wrap Up…

Retargeting is big. Retargeting has driven a lot of display spending that otherwise would not have occurred. Retargeting is more than just site retargeting — it is also search retargeting and email retargeting. It is being used primarily for customer acquisition, but also for boosting branding and awareness.

Because of all of this, budgets are increasing, and at a quicker rate than before. But, have caution: don’t just spend more for the sake of spending more, spend smarter instead.

Advertisers need to find ways to tame the chaos and deliver maximum performance on their advertising campaigns. Many see unstructured data as a chaotic addition to their advertising mix, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s how to use the powerhouse of unstructured data to transform your chaos into unmatched performance.

Nix Pre-Packaged Segments & Embrace Unstructured Data

If you’re using a Demand Side Platform or other targeting platform, you are most likely targeting based on pre-packaged data segments. That’s the way most platforms work, and they’re rife with the same data that everyone else uses. This can significantly undermine your campaign performance. With segment-level data, performance is averaged across the highest and lowest performing elements of the audience segment, with limited ability to understand which elements are working and why.

When you run campaigns powered by unstructured data – something I’m a believer in – you’ll not only improve performance but also get a clear view into which data elements are successful and which aren’t.

Search marketing provides a good example of the benefits of targeting using unstructured data elements. Most would agree that search marketing would never have been as prosperous as it has been if advertisers were only enabled to upload lists of keywords, apply the same bid price across all keywords in the group, and were only shown delivery, CPC, and CPA performance for the keyword group as a whole. The ability to bid, report, and optimize at the individual keyword level is one of the key features that has made search marketing successful.

Keyword Retargeting

The same expectation should be applied outside of search. For example, the “search-like” capability to bid, report, and optimize at the keyword level in a display-based search retargeting campaign will enable improved performance in a campaign, whether the campaign is measured on a CTR, CPC, or CPA basis.

When pricing control and optimization occur at the element level, the door is opened for heightened visibility into campaigns and an understanding of what campaign elements will pack the most punch with your audiences.

Sometimes, it might just be a minor shift in keywords – swapping “mobile phone” in for “smart phone” – based on the ability to see that “smart phone” is driving a higher return on investment. This ability to see performance at the keyword level drives major improvements in campaign ROI.

Site Retargeting

In site retargeting campaigns, using data in its unstructured form yields similar positive results. Instead of targeting all users who have visited a site as a unified group, unstructured data targeting enables optimization down to the most micro of elements – like pages, categories or products viewed.

It gives you the ability to bid, report, and optimize based on very specific details of your audience’s behavior and the ability to improve the performance of site retargeting campaigns.

Contextual Targeting

The power of unstructured data doesn’t end with keyword and site retargeting. The same concept applies to contextual targeting and CRM targeting, as well. With keyword contextual targeting, advertisers can leverage unstructured data to define custom contextual categories, and to optimize bidding based on the performance of individual keywords that are present on pages.

CRM Targeting

With CRM targeting, the value of unstructured data is also high. Through integrating your offline CRM data online without putting it into pre-packaged segments, you can target much more granular behavior… again driving improved performance and deeper insights.

Performance Means Going With What Works

One way of demonstrating the value of unstructured data is to observe the variability of performance of data elements within campaigns. The chart below shows examples of click-through rates (CTRs) of the best 5% performing keywords, and the worst 5% performing keywords for campaigns in the Auto, Retail, and CPG verticals.

In traditional, segment-based targeting, all of these elements would be treated the same; there would be no insight into which keywords were performing well and which ones were not.

However, by reporting performance at the keyword level, it is seen that the top performing keywords can perform five times or ten times better than the worst keywords. This data can be used to optimize campaigns around the best performing keywords, significantly improving campaign performance.

For example, a well-known consumer packaged goods (CPG) company recently ran a campaign with the goal of attaining a .1 percent click-through rate (CTR). Through using unstructured data, the company was granted insight into the CTR for each keyword in campaign reports.

This enables automated optimization that allocated budget to the top performing keywords. The result? The company achieved an average CTR of.27 percent– almost three times higher than the initial goal of the campaign.

Unstructured data might seem complex to use; but, it actually is far simpler. This is because it eliminates the time required to model, analyze, and create the pre-packaged audience segments prior to campaign launch. Instead, unstructured data is applied to a campaign, and the optimum audience is automatically built based on actual campaign response.

In a nutshell: while unstructured data may seem like just another chaotic addition to the world of online advertising, it actually is a great tool for driving performance.

• How Search Retargeting Bridges The Gap Between Search & Display
• How Search Retargeting Can Be Useful To Marketers In Making More Efficient Use Of Their Display Advertising Spend
• How Search Retargeting Can Help Minimize The Risk Of Adjusting Spend In Each Of Those Two Categories

In the paper cited above, researchers found that “each $1 invested in display and search leads to a return of $1.24 for display and $1.75 for search ads.” As a result, there should be “an increase in search advertising budget share by up to 36%, followed by a commensurate reduction in display.”

While the researchers acknowledge the limitations of the study, the conclusion seems reasonable. However, it seems to oversimplify the interaction between display ads and SEM, especially given the single participant (a bank) in the research.

Search Retargeting Can Maximize Campaign Performance

Overall, this may not necessarily be the best approach for all marketers. In fact, this highlights an opportunity for using search retargeting to maximize both display and SEM performance. It’s a well-known fact that display ads drive search and consequently increase search click rates. This study also noted,  “display exposure not only increases conversion through search, but also drives search visitation and search clicks.”

In my mind, the difficulty comes when trying to efficiently manage display spend. How much of the display spend should be moved to search? Since display has an uplift effect on search conversions, marketers should be cautious about shifting too many ad dollars away from display so as to not adversely affect their SEM campaigns, thus driving down acquisition through search conversion. This is where search retargeting has the potential to come in and close the gap.

Search retargeting can bridge the display/search gap and provide an opportunity for a more efficient display ad spend without the necessity and risk of making large adjustments to search and display budgets.

Marketers should begin by taking a portion of their current display advertising spend and allocating it to a search retargeted campaign to see the display lift on search. If they are acquiring new consumers that are performing related searches for which the marketer may not have an SEM campaign, then they are driving those consumers into their funnel.

Shifting Display Dollars To A Search Retargeting Campaign

This option can improve the efficiency of your ad spend in two ways:

• By showing display ads to consumers that are searching for related products or keywords outside of a SEM campaign, marketers increase awareness and potentially drive consumers to continue their search quest for their product.

For example, a consumer searches for a Ford SUV and through a search retargeted campaign, is now shown display ads for a Toyota SUV. This goes back to my last article where keywords in display are expanded; therefore, the audience is larger than that of SEM, but still relevant to the marketer’s product.

• Display ads would be shown to consumers who searched for the marketer’s product, which could increase the CTR of the display campaign.

For example, in the above study, bank consumers searching for the phrase “checking accounts” that saw the keyword-based search ads but failed to interact because they didn’t see the display ads (which significantly increase search interaction) would then be shown the display ads. This could result in either direct interaction with the display ads, or in driving search behavior and conversion through SEM over several days.

Bridging The Gap Between Search & Display

Although the Harvard paper doesn’t completely discount that display does influence search and has significant value within a campaign overall, the findings suggest that the solution to better performance and stronger ROI is shifting display dollars to search campaigns.

However, instead of completely shifting those dollars away from display, my recommendation for marketers is to bridge that gap using search retargeting, which allows marketers to target display ads to consumers that are interested in their product or related products, and drive those consumers into the conversion funnel earlier.

Using more data can be difficult to do, and so, the way to use more data is with an approach called ‘programmatic.’ Removing all the complexity and BS from the term, at its highest level, ‘programmatic’ just means that you are writing some logical rules that combine bits of that data together.

Simple, right?

It Means You Don’t Have To Guess Anymore

The rise of media exchanges and RTB (real-time bidding) means that as marketers we no longer need to simply shout at crowds, but instead can talk directly to individuals.

It used to be common for a marketer to brief an agency or publisher about their audience by describing them with attributes such as age, gender, household income (HHI), whether they have kids, etc., and then go find sites that felt they had a similar audience.

If you wanted males between the ages of 18 and 25, you would probably call GQ or ESPN; if your need is moms with new babies, then probably iVilliage or Parenting.com; or if you wanted financial types, then Motley Fool or Yahoo Finance. Each of these would be perfectly reasonable sites to include on a media plan, but each one inherently includes wastage that drives down the efficiency of your plan. GQ, for instance, will also have some female visitors; iVillage, some dads, and so on.

With a site buy, marketers are guessing that they will be getting their ad in front of the right person.

But then, the guessing was reduced significantly. The site became less of a focus, and the individual became what mattered. Instead of hoping to find males between the ages of 18 and 25 on your selected publishers, marketers can now cherry pick who matches the criteria by using their own data, or 3^rd-party data.

Not Getting Carried Away

This is a great shift, and RTB has changed marketing forever. I accept, though ,that marketers are on somewhat of a data high; they feel cookies and algorithms are all that matters today.

That is actually very wrong, and thankfully for the sake of us all, it turns out the context of the placement remains important, as does the creative message you choose to show (webinar recording: ‘Why The Creative Still Matters in Programmatic Marketing‘).

Real Executions With Programmatic

There are many cases where the use of big data and a programmatic approach are making a real difference already.

A.  Programmatic Site Retargeting

Know it or not, the most dollars being spent today using data are with site retargeting – in this case, the data is that of an individual visiting a site. As we also reviewed in the last article, though, most marketers don’t understand all the data they have, and are not using it in their decisioning, meaning they are not being smart.

Dedicated site retargeting companies are incentivized to make you spend more, not to ‘spend the right amount.’ They are not interested in encouraging the use of big data because it will tell you that many people shouldn’t be in your cookie pool.

As an example, if an individual is visiting a luxury car brand, but is also searching for ‘bad debt loans’ on Google, why retarget them?

If an individual is looking at the careers page of a retailer, they want a job, not your products, and so why retarget them, given they aren’t looking to buy?

If they are your fan on Facebook, why use retargeting impressions to talk to them, too – or, given they are a fan, they must be super-engaged, so perhaps double your investment in them.

This is big data, or more data, in action.

B. Search Retargeting

Another great example is search retargeting. In order to process billions of keywords every month, we construct rules that help determine which individuals are relevant and what value they have to an advertiser.

Programmatic rules might help us determine that someone searching for ‘vacation,’ ‘champagne delivery’ and ‘burberry’ are likely to spend more on a travel site than someone searching for ‘vacation’ and then browsing sites for credit cards for people with bad debt.

Hopefully you are seeing the trend here, more data makes you smarter, and means you can cut out the wastage from what you are doing.

C. Programmatic Look-A-Like Targeting

The same applies for common techniques such as look-a-like modeling. To understand the difference, think of search retargeting and programmatic site retargeting as ‘reactionary’ – someone does something, you respond – whereas look-a-like is predictive, you are using lots of data to decide who else will respond well to the message a marketer wants to show.

As an example, you could take a site like Bed Bath & Beyond. If an individual buys a lot of basics in one go and uses a ‘new mover’ voucher, then we know they just moved into a house and are a desirable target customer.

We could then look at everything else we know about that person (gender, search terms, location, age etc.) and find more people who share those attributes. Those people who overlap are very likely to respond well to the Bed Bath & Beyond messaging.

There is so much data that can be collected about individuals that a programmatic approach is being used to crunch it all and work out what makes the most sense.

And So…

Programmatic and Big Data might be new buzz terms within this industry, but many smart tactics are using them already. If you are buying display today, chances are some of the tactics you have live use this way of thinking.

But importantly, know that they highlight smarter spending, not just more ways to spend more. And so, be sure your partners are incentivized to work with you in that way.

There are two major factors that make search marketing so successful. The first is marketer control at the keyword level. That’s about as granular as intent-based advertising gets.

The second is that search ads have immediate recency. Meaning, the time between user intent and ad impression is nearly zero. As soon as the consumer hits search, the relevant ad is right there for him or her to click. This is one reason click through rates in search blow away social CTR. We refer to this impact of immediacy as the “recency bump.”

Now, retargeting users with display ads enables marketers to benefit from the recency bump beyond the search engine results page. And, the triggering event doesn’t even have to be a search. A site visit or even an offline event can trigger time-sensitive display ads that cash in on recency.

Why Recency Matters: The Proof Is In The Data.

Although the recency bump should make sense to marketers on an intuitive level, recency is the forgotten dimension of retargeting.

The data bears out the importance of recency. Simpli.fi CRO James Moore recently reported data recency findings collected from more than 200 display campaigns in the personal finance industry. To give you an idea of what we’re looking at here, keywords included terms like mortgage, debt, loan, credit. You get the idea.

Here’s what he found.

First, recency drives up CTR. We’ve learned that CTR and conversion rates are highest within one hour of the campaign-triggering search. Once the search ages beyond 24 hours, the numbers fall off dramatically. In fact, CTR begins its decline as soon as 30 minutes after the triggering event. The chart below illustrates this point.

Meanwhile, recency drives down cost per click (CPC), if you’re smart about it. It’s up to you (or your retargeting platform) to find that sweet spot between the aggressive bidding war in the seconds immediately following the action and the period so far down the road that your ad is no longer relevant to the user. The chart below highlights the CPC sweet spot between five minutes and one hour after the triggering event.

Search, Site Visits & The Customer Lifecycle

Now, let’s take a look at how the recency bump impacts specific retargeting scenarios.

Recency and Search Retargeting. Search data speaks volumes about a consumer’s interests, likes and dislikes, and intended behavior. The shelf life of the recency bump in search varies by industry and by keyword.

For example, if you’re running a pizza delivery company near an airport, you’ll only get a couple minutes to convert someone searching for “deals on pizza” into a buyer. On the other hand, if you’re selling real estate or car insurance, your recency window will hold up better over time.

Recency and Site Retargeting. You’re probably paying to drive traffic to your website. Unfortunately, up to 98% of site visitors don’t convert to a newsletter opt-in, a coupon download, or a product purchase. You don’t have to lose that visitor, especially if you act fast.

The key to bringing them back and getting them to convert is to be cognizant of where they’re at in the funnel. Are they doing basic research or simply browsing? Good. You’ve got some time. Did they abandon their shopping cart? You must get them back to your site fast before they forget why they put your product in their cart in the first place.

Recency and Customer Lifecycle Targeting. Retargeting use cases tied to online behaviors like searches or site visits are obvious. But what about timing your campaigns based on offline actions like retail visits or purchases?

By investing in a retargeting platform that ties into your CRM, you can do some pretty cool things. An electronics store can follow up immediately on a television purchase with ads for cables or speakers. A car dealership can turn on its service department ads in six-month intervals after a new vehicle purchase.

When it comes to targeting campaigns based on the customer lifecycle, the imagination and data hygiene are the only barriers to success.

The Impact Of Ad Buying Technology

When we think of retargeting campaigns, we rarely think about the element of time. Is that due to our limited points of view, or is it a function of a market littered with lackluster buying platforms? I think it’s the latter.

This is unfortunate, because there’s great technology out there. You just have to find it.

The right technology should programmatically adjust bidding based on the age of the search, site visit, or customer lifecycle triggers. All marketers can benefit from the recency bump by taking advantage of the critical – yet overlooked – impact of time.

There are various search entities where data resides – such as search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, and then other search entities including vertical sites, shopping comparison engines, e-commerce sites and social networks. The combination of all of these searches is creating opportunities for marketers to take search data beyond SEM and into other types of marketing territory.

Value Of Search Data Beyond Search Engines

Today’s search world is anything but linear. When you think about it, search has really become more organic; something that has grown into multiple elements and can be placed in a variety of contexts to provide greater insights. Marketers should start by understanding that the use of search data in SEM is different from the use of search in display.

Additionally, search data is a great source of consumer behavior and an identifying factor of where a consumer is within the purchasing funnel.

Given this sheer volume of data, it’s easy to see why search data is becoming more important for display advertisers. Today, search data allows display advertisers to reach a broader audience, proving that it’s no longer just a lower level, funnel-marketing channel for SEM advertisers.

This has evolved because in display, marketers aren’t buying keywords related to a search from a list, but an audience based on search. Rather than bidding on specific keywords; in display, you are targeting a much larger audience that is based on other related words, not just a single keyword.

For example, in search, marketers that want to target using the keyword “lawyer” will need to purchase all three related keywords: attorney, legal advice and lawyer.

In display, that same “lawyer” keyword is expanded to include related terms, and would result in an audience that includes people that search for lawyer, attorney, law advice, lawsuit, legal counsel, etc. These keywords are without an additional cost to the marketer and result in an increased reach for the campaign.

Search Engines + Other Search Entities = Greater Insights

As mentioned earlier, search data that is used in display advertising comes from a vast range of sites that aren’t search engines. These types of sites include e-commerce sites, vertical and shopping comparison sites and social networking sites.

The breadth of data available on these sites increases the likelihood that display campaigns based on search will reach consumers earlier in the purchase cycle. This allows advertisers to get their brand and message in front of those consumers during the influence/consideration phase, before they have made their purchasing decision.

The analysis of various sources of search data leads to a pool of insights into consumer trends, purchasing decisions, and the demographics of consumers that are searching for your product or related products.

For example, when you combine search with additional browsing behaviors, marketers get a much richer picture of how long a consumer may consider specific products, what factors play a role in the purchasing process, the kinds of sites that consumers who are interested in the product visit, and other, perhaps even unrelated products, your consumer audience is interested in, etc.

Understanding The Value Of Search In Display

While the search industry has had a proven model since the ’90s, it’s also true that display has created even more value for the search channel and its data. In my opinion, marketers shouldn’t overlook the value that comes, very cost-effectively, from the use of combining search data with display advertising, as many of the insights gleaned go beyond what Google and Bing have.

Search data shouldn’t be seen just as a marketing channel, or be used only for SEM; it should be seen as a major contributor to the overall digital marketing mix. Below are a few ways marketers can make the most out of search data for their display campaigns:

1. Leverage search retargeting for search extension: Take your search keywords and work with a partner that can expand your SEM list for greater scale in display.
2. Apply search insights to display strategy: Use search data to gain insights into consumer trends, purchasing patterns and trends, etc., refining your display campaign and targeting parameters accordingly.
3. Use display as a method for conquesting: Search engines like Google don’t enable conquesting. By utilizing search data within display, marketers can target audiences with display ads based on competitors’ key terms.
4. Break free from CPC pricing, while using search data: Buying each keyword in search quickly adds up, and some keywords are simply more costly than others. When you apply search data to display targeting, you place value on the audience vs. each individual keyword.

But, there is also the more invisible footprints you leave as you go about your day swiping your credit card, driving through tolls, visiting websites, etc.. So, when we talk about Big Data, we really mean it.

Like many buzz terms, Big Data and Programmatic Marketing are actually nothing new, they are old ideas brought up to date to the modern need; and so, if you really want to succeed in digital marketing, you must understand their roots and the core promises they make.

You must also look to the future and understand the vision we have for the programmatic approach; you might be surprised what can be done.

Big Data Is Not A New Marketing Tool

Let’s start by looking at ‘big data’ in its simplest form. Big data is just lots of data! Many companies have lots of data at their disposal, and have for generations.

Think of traditional catalogue companies that have massive quantities of CRM data relating to every household in the country, or a supermarket brand with a loyalty card program that knows everything about your shopping habits, or even a credit card company that knows everything about your life and habits through your spend data — all these companies have had ‘big data’ for a long time.

So, to be a little more precise, think of big data in today’s world as being lots of data, but lots of data that is dispersed across multiple systems, and can therefore be cumbersome to make actionable in a meaningful way.

If you are a catalogue company, then dispersed data doesn’t represent too much of a problem; you can run a query against your various databases to extract the information you need, and if that takes 24 hours to process, no big deal. But, in the digital world where we are trying to make decisions in real-time, this cumbersome nature represents a real problem.

Programmatic Marketing

Therefore, the promise of programmatic marketing is to bind dispersed data together and make it actionable in a real-time, digital world. The idea is that these multiple systems are brought together through one technology, and then, rules can be written to make decisions and actions based on all that data. Think of a simple Boolean logic query that would say something like:

Show ad 1 to (active customers who have NOT bought in the last 30 days AND live in California AND are male)

Realize it or not, that is how programmatic marketing works. Now, work would have to be done on the backend to make the databases that contain that information accessible, but can you imagine the power placed into the hands of a marketer who could see 2.5 quintillion bytes of data about their audience!

Executions

Such systems are not straightforward to build, but if done right, are simple to use. The industry started with the idea of DSPs (Demand Side Platforms) for buying in real-time, and then added DMPs (Data Management Platforms) to start trying to bring some of this data together. The problem remains that such systems leak huge amounts of valuable data and force buying decisions to be made on data that is out of date.

There is a new movement of the PMP (Programmatic Marketing Platform) which we coined within the industry and relates to systems specifically designed to capitalize on the opportunities of big data and programmatic marketing in today’s market, and in the future.

This approach is already starting to change the way common marketing techniques are bought. Take site retargeting, for instance. Nearly every marketer is doing it, and while I feel strongly that it is being measured incorrectly, it is producing results.

But even with advanced site retargeting, the marketer is ignoring the true value of each individual. Sure, they might be serving them a dynamic ad with the actual product they looked at within it, but does that person really have any likelihood of converting? With big data, a site retargeting campaign can be driven by more data, and more data makes us smarter marketers.

If you are a luxury car brand, do you really want to retarget everyone who looked at your sports cars? Really? Even if at 2 a.m., they were searching for bad debt credit cards? How about saving those impressions and investing them in something else?

Or, if you are a home supply store, and someone arrives on your site from Google having searched for ‘granite counter tops’ versus the person arriving searching for ‘how to hang wallpaper.’ Which one do you think you should invest in? Big data and a programmatic framework will tell you – and then make you smarter and more efficient. Site retargeting becomes ‘Programmatic Site Retargeting.’

These types of executions are reactionary – an individual does something, and we do something in return. Big data allows us to be predictive, too, though. We can analyze the data about individuals and predict what they may want in the future. We can even analyze our existing customers and based on shared behaviors, guess who else in the population might respond well to our messages because they are connected somehow. Think of it as a ‘programmatic look-a-like’ capability.

A Programmatic Future

Looking to the future of marketing has never been more fun. The very beliefs of a PMP are that data come from many sources, and the executions that can occur from that data will be as varied. Already today, there are companies testing ideas such as digital billboards with facial recognition, or taxicabs with digital ads that change based on the geo location.

Programmatic might be the buzz term that is new within display advertising, but its implications are far more broad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Video: Face-recognition comes to billboards)

Imagine as a marketer, being able to know when one of your customers is in a taxicab, and whether they opened your latest email before they got in it, whether they have bought from you recently and whether they are due to go on vacation soon. And from that data, being able to decide the value of showing them your message at that precise moment. It’s almost ‘individual marketing’!

What Does This Mean For Today’s Marketer?

We have been pushing hard as marketers to reach the magical place of always talking to the right person at the right time and with the right message, and that shouldn’t change. But big data and programmatic marketing take us into a new area – ‘right price.’

In a real-time media world, understanding how much to pay to talk to someone is as critical as knowing which person to talk to in the first place, and now you can.