How Mobile Drives People-Based Marketing

Connecting experiences across screens

Have cookies finally crumbled? Once the centerpiece of digital ad campaigns, they have quickly become insufficient in a world where customer experience is segmented across an array of platforms—which may or may not even support this kind of tracking data. That’s why the name of the game is now people-based advertising.

Mobile devices are the connective tissue that can link people-based, cross-screen campaigns. The challenge to this kind of mobile-first approach is actually being able to figure out who a device belongs to. But once you do, it’s apparent why mobile is a digital marketer’s omnichannel MVP:

1. Know your method

There are three basic methods being used to link users or audiences to a device. First is first-party data where large sites—typically publishers such as Facebook or The New York Times—require a user to log in with an email address. That email can then be tied to the mobile device ID as well as to browsers and other devices where the site/app is used to identify the person for ad targeting.

Second is location-based targeting, which uses a history of location signals to determine a user or user characteristics; for example, a device that goes to a school, a park and a children’s clothing store is assumed to belong to a mom with children.

The third is probabilistic modeling, which uses analysis of IP address and various signals, such as content consumed and time of use, to predict which mobile devices belong to people. For instance, using a smartphone at the same WiFi location as a desktop or laptop would make it probable that the device belongs to the same household.

Each of these methods has its benefits and limitations. First-party data may be accurate but is limited in terms of reach—publishers such as Facebook and Yahoo are “walled gardens,” meaning your ad only reaches those using their properties and they can also be protective of their data. Location-based audiences offer scale, but they require guesswork, limiting their accuracy because in the end you don’t know to whom the device belongs, only where they’ve been. And accuracy can also be an issue with probabilistic—it’s been estimated some methods link to the wrong household’s data on up to 30 percent of the audience.

It’s important for marketers to determine what method platforms use in order to understand their level of accuracy. 4INFO, for example, associates mobile devices directly with a physical home address. That address can then be used as a match point to tie first-party and third-party data to the device. The address can also be tied to transaction data that may be captured by credit cards or loyalty cards, which in turn can be tied to the device.

2. Make measurement easier

A recent eMarketer report predicted that mobile spend will reach as much as $44 billion in 2016. Still, many marketers lament the difficulty in tracking ROI in mobile campaigns. According to a study by Millward Brown Digital, almost 80 percent of marketers want to ramp up their mobile efforts—if, that is, ROI tracking were easier.

The key may be in following the customer through the entire marketing funnel, all the way to the final purchase—even when it takes place in a brick-and-mortar store. A mobile-first approach doesn’t just make this full-funnel strategy possible—it makes it easy.

The challenge is to limit the impact of “walled gardens” like Facebook or Yahoo. They can certainly be part of a successful mobile marketing mix. But they can’t be everything. Many brands gain greater insights and reach new customers by taking control of their own data or partnering with an unwalled garden—an independent, transparent platform that protects your data and shares its own, and one that is willing to create custom solutions without limiting your choices of media delivery.

3. Go full-funnel

With a device accurately tied to a person, it’s possible to get a full-funnel view of an ad’s impact.

Top-of-the-funnel metrics will look at how a mobile ad campaign impacted awareness of a product or brand and drove prospects deeper into the funnel. These are things like impressions or brand lift. The middle of the funnel looks at engagement; it is more about qualifying leads and seeing how these people interact with your brand. Common metrics might include clicks, interactions or page views.

For many brands, the rubber hits the road when you start measuring the bottom of the funnel, which is the point of purchase. And that’s where some digital metrics fail, since that final purchase may well be taking place offline. In other cases, mobile marketers think measuring store visits or foot traffic based on smartphone signals accurately measures the bottom of the funnel for purchases that take place in stores, but it’s not necessarily accurate because the person with the mobile device may leave the store without making a purchase and if they do make a purchase, you have no idea what they bought or how much they spent. The key to calculating a precise Return on Ad Spend is to be able to link the mobile user to the actual sales transaction, or to even go a step further and identify their lifetime value.

By using full-funnel analytics, you get a more complete picture of campaign success across different stages. It also gives you a tool to make better marketing decisions down the road by having a clear idea of ROI across your campaign. The tools are already out there. Now, it’s up to marketers to put mobile first.