How Event Data Helps Media Buyers Expand Reach

January 7, 2020

Data analytics are changing the game for marketing executives: providing access to extraordinary volumes of consumer data, which can then be used to gain a deeper understanding of the customer than ever before. However, there is one area of data analytics that is particularly useful for media planners: event analytics.

There are several layers of data used in customer analytics. Demographic data has long been used to segment customers on the most basic level – by gender, age, income – giving marketers an understanding of who comprises their audience. Behavioral data tells you what people are doing – how often they visit a particular location, for example – to give you an idea of where the audience is.

How Event Data Helps Media Buyers Expand Reach

But event data is considered attributional, helping marketers understand why people do what they do. Done correctly, event data ties an individual to a specific event, providing another layer of insight to a customer’s interests, attitudes and values. Getting to the why gives marketers a much deeper level of understanding of a customer’s motivations, which can be used to drive marketing strategy.

Media buyers use data to make determinations about the best way to reach a customer at the right moment, with the right message to improve results. There are more channels than ever to consider, more consumer touchpoints, and customer demand for relevant, personalized, quality content is increasing.

A media buyer can use event data to expand reach by:

1. Discover New Audiences

Through event data, a media planner can uncover the interests of their audience, and use that insight to discover new audiences as well. For example, perhaps the customers of a wine store attend an ASPCA fundraiser in great numbers. This could lead to a new audience – ASPCA members, Humane Society volunteers, pet store customers, or people generally interested in animal welfare.

2. Enhancing Targeting

Knowing the events that customers are attending gives information on where people have been, and can be used to indicate where they will be in the future. With this knowledge, a media planner can make informed, data-driven decisions about the best channel to use, with the most effective message, at the correct moment to drive results.

3. Improving ROI

One of the key performance indicators for media buyers is the return on investment – measuring how well a media buying strategy actually delivers results. Event data drives strategic decision-making to improve reach, targeting, messaging and channel selection, which all relate to better ROI. And as a media buyer delivers measurable, data-driven results, it builds confidence at the executive level in future strategic decision-making as well.

In event data analytics, it is critical to ensure that the data is cleansed, with any incorrect or corrupt data removed from the set prior to analysis. It must also be accurate, as any inaccuracies in data will be reflected with inaccurate conclusions. Finally, the larger the dataset available the better: the greater the volume of relevant data, the more likely that accurate, valuable insight will be achieved.

As media buying becomes more complex and challenging, it is critical to take advantage of all available tools to improve strategy and ROI. Event data analytics is the next step in consumer analytics – providing attributional data, insight into customer interests, values, and activities to improve targeting and reach.

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