targeting efforts, but the main profit stays with the app developer who avoids ... Along with app install and app engage
Social Data Powering Mobile & Display
An exploration of the growing reach and capabilities of social platforms
November 2015
WHAT SOCIAL PLATFORMS KNOW
How the evolution of social networks has informed the kinds of data they have to leverage
THREE TYPES OF KNOWING
What is unique about social data and the three categories it falls into: Conversational, Actions and Identity
FROM NETWORK TO ECOSYSTEM
The steps social networks have taken to expand the use of their data, focusing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare
A MULTICHANNEL UNIVERSE
A look at how sequential messaging can play a role in a full multichannel consumer universe
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Key takeaways and suggested resources for further exploration
FROM LATUTUDE &
DATA LONGITUDE CONNECTIVITY WILL WHAT SOCIAL TO PLATFORMS KNOW SAVE US ALL PROXMIT THE EARLY DAYS OF SOCIAL DATA The strength of networks in the world of media has always been proportional to the size of their audience. This has continued to hold true for digital, but what has been added in the new paradigm of social networks is the depth, quality and variety of insights each has the ability to capture about their users. In most cases, this is data that is derived from the networks themselves and require no third party involvement from the likes of Nielsen or ComScore. Given this, it is no surprise that a number of the leading social networks have developed ways to monetize the various streams of data and have taken it a step further, leveraging the information to more effectively and efficiently extend their audience reach.
THREE TYPES OF KNOWING What social networks know about their users, is for the most part based on what people actually do on those networks. For instance, Facebook began as a closed invitation-only platform for college students to stay connected within their small communities. It began by collecting information such as email addresses, users real names and locations and school attendance. But as it expanded beyond its original audience, Facebook remained grounded as a connection point for pre-existing contacts using real identities (for the most part) to connect with each other. In contrast, Twitter began as much more of an affinity network, allowing people who may not know each other to connect based on interests or topics. Unlike what is typical of Facebook, these connections are often not reciprocal, and that makes the information Twitter collects distinctly different. Both examples tie back nicely into the three types of knowing: Identity, Actions and Conversation – utilized by most networks at different touchpoints, with some having certain strengths relative to each other. For example, Facebook is stronger when it comes to identity, as is LinkedIn which relies on people using real names and details in order to network based on their career. Twitter has strength conversationally, particularly around external events thanks to their newsfeed which is based solely on recency, at least for now. A network like Foursquare, however, is based on actions – from checking in, adding photos, sharing reviews or simply going from one location to another.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
FROM LATUTUDE &
DATA CONNECTIVITY FROM NETWORKTO TO WILL LONGITUDE ECOSYSTEMS SAVE US ALL PROXMIT THE EVOLUTION OF THE NETWORK As networks explored the value of their data through the lens of these three types of knowing, the opportunity to expand their footprint into display, particularly in mobile, became a priority. Since the second half of 2014, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Foursquare have all found ways to leverage their data as a means to target users outside of the confines of their network. Each of these networks has developed their own ad network to allow marketers to use this data elsewhere. In addition, Foursquare has gone further with location data, working with partners like Google and Turn to allow access at the DSP level. In the following, we look at each network’s offering and discuss how it can be leveraged by marketers to their advantage.
When a user that is logged into Facebook, visits an app on Facebook’s Audience Network, they are served a personalized ad sold by Facebook and targeted based on the user’s personal Facebook information such as age, gender, interests and activity. Facebook takes a cut for its targeting efforts, but the main profit stays with the app developer who avoids having to hire an ad sales team. In fact, the Audience Network uses the same targeting and measurement features that marketers already use when advertising directly on Facebook and can even use the same image copy. The ability to do this is integrated into Facebook’s Power Editor, just like any other ad type within Facebook (see below). This seamlessness essentially colonizes display as another form of social advertising by leveraging Facebook's data and infrastructure.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
DATA CONNECTIVITY WHATNETWORK SOCIAL TO WILL FROM PLATFORMS KNOW SAVE US ALL ECOSYSTEMS
Ads delivered by Facebook’s Audience Network come in three versions – banner, interstitial and native, all designed to fit seamlessly within the apps where they appear. Examples are below.
Along with app install and app engagement ads, the Audience Network also supports Link ads, meaning any advertiser can use the network to drive traffic to its mobile website. According to Facebook, Audience Network publishers that use its native ad units get seven times better performance versus their traditional banner ads. In fact, 80% of Audience Network impressions are for native ads, up swiftly from 60% in March 2015. (Source: Facebook).
These native ad formats include Auto-play Video as well as Multi-image Carousel ads which offer deeper looks at products or better storytelling, Dynamic Product Ads which retarget users with items they’ve considered buying elsewhere on the internet, and more traditional Interstitial Click-to-play Video ads.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
DATA CONNECTIVITY WILL SAVE US ALL
FROM LATUTUDE & FROM NETWORKTO TO LONGITUDE ECOSYSTEMS PROXMIT
The Twitter Audience Platform offers advertisers the ability to drive mobile app installs and reengagements, to drive tweet engagements and video views. Many of the targeting signals used on Twitter, such as interest, username and keyword, can be applied to your campaigns across mobile apps. As on Twitter, promoted videos on the Twitter Audience Platform can play automatically on a device. Twitter users can also retweet and favorite directly from Twitter Audience Platform ads.
Additionally, with it’s platform Twitter is able to transform promoted tweet creative into immersive ad formats including video, native ads, banners, and interstitials. For example: • Tweet engagement campaigns on Twitter become interstitial and native ads. • Promoted video campaigns are turned into in-app video ads. • App install or re-engagement campaigns become interstitial or banner ads.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
DATA CONNECTIVITY WILL SAVE US ALL
FROM LATUTUDE & FROM NETWORKTO TO LONGITUDE ECOSYSTEMS PROXMIT
LinkedIn’s Network Display recently partnered with AppNexus to deliver ads based on LinkedIn data not only on LinkedIn's site and apps, but also across its network of 2,500 other businessfocused websites. This is on the heels of LinkedIn's acquisition of Bizo, a B2B focused marketing platform which it has since integrated into LinkedIn from a resource, staff and technology perspective. When LinkedIn users are logged into its platform, the company has access to rich data sets such as age, employer, position, connections, and browsing behavior. The data is all anonymized, meaning that while advertisers won't know which sites a user visited, they will for example know that 30% of those visitors are finance directors from London. That said, users can opt out of this form of targeting via their LinkedIn settings. Advertisers that are interested in the display network, are required to sign up to use the new advertising products on either a quarterly or annual subscription basis. LinkedIn also requires that advertisers have a minimum of 20,000 visitors (or "leads") to their website in order to sign up.
Foursquare Pinpoint uses its six years of first-party location intelligence to “create a map of the world the way your mobile device sees it.” Their snap-to-place technology filters out inaccurate location data so advertisers only get the precise places that their audience visits in the real world via its Foursquare Pinpoint offer. This platform helps advertisers make sense of the relationship between people and places, helping brands target messaging based on more than just demographics. Through a verified ecosystem of apps, exchanges and publishers, marketers can create custom audiences at scale, using the psychographic data that they need, combined with the location data that only Foursquare knows. Their proprietary Attribution Report (see categories below) ensures that advertisers can easily quantify how effective their campaigns are in driving critical foot traffic in locations.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
A MULTICHANNEL UNIVERSE
Social Data Powering Results Increasingly marketers are finding that using social data to target audiences in mobile display has the ability to successfully extend the reach and impact of their paid social efforts while outperforming standard ad units. For example, relative to other campaigns on Facebook only, MEC has seen Facebook Audience Network increase reach by 5% and improve click-through rate by four-five times across many of our client campaign efforts (Source: MEC Research, May-September 2015). MEC campaigns running across both Twitter and the Twitter Audience Platform have doubled reach with lower CPEs by as much as 30% (Source: MEC Research, May-September 2015). Research commissioned by Twitter also showed that non-Twitter users who saw a Twitter Audience Platform ad, expressed about 11% more positive sentiment towards the brand advertiser. Additionally, using Foursquare Pinpoint for a retail client, we were able to tie exposures to instore visits with a .05% visit rate. 32% of users had never before been to the retailer. 29% hadn't been within the previous three months. Only 20% of visitors were previously loyal customers (20% visiting in the previous month) (Source: MEC and Foursquare data 10/15). Where social was once the redheaded stepchild of marketing, mostly a playground for earned marketing on the cheap, it has increasingly become an engine that can power marketing across channels.
Sequential Messaging Across Social, Mobile and Display For marketers the access to social data opens up endless opportunity for sequentially storytelling, enabling deeper engagement across both social, mobile and display platforms. Mirroring the actual usage habits of consumers during the purchase journey not only increases the impact but also the efficiency of spend across channels. Most importantly, social data opens the door to match the sequencing of creative with the journey from awareness all the way through to purchase. For instance, knowing that a user watched a promoted brand video all the way through on Instagram, gives us a clear signal that it resonated strongly with that user. A brand can then follow that with creative on Facebook, targeting the same user but extending a story that may have been a product launch anthem into a local availability with a call to action to find a retailer. Once consumers have elected to find a retailer, a brand has the ability to close the loop in mobile display using Facebook’s network geotargeted to that specific user, serving them an ad when they are actually in proximity to a retailer. This smart application of social data is making both social and display work harder and smarter for marketers.
The ability to leverage this rich data should already be part of the standard toolkit that marketers and brands are using within social networks to reach the right audiences with the right content at the right time.
Marketers that are following consumer behaviour more holistically, particularly within mobile environments where traditional banners struggle, are enjoying increased efficiency and results.
Even in cases where the data is used primarily to target outside of the social network, as with Foursquare, the results can measurably add significant impact to mobile display efforts.
The Future of Targeting With Social Data As the ability to match data sets becomes more sophisticated, it’s not inconceivable to imagine a near future in which social data powers digital out of home, TV, and even print targeting Certainly Facebook’s recent move into retailer level location targeting allows them to potentially use a vast set of data points to reach the right person in the right place at the right time. As marketers have bemoaned the lack of integration amongst different data solutions it appears that Facebook is getting close to what Google has previously attempted – to be the data glue that binds the marketers world from CRM to display to offline and back to point of sale. This also reinforces their scale advantage over any other social network – it’s unlikely that Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare or Snapchat and Pinterest will have the same breadth and depth anytime soon… but only time will tell. And we will be on the look for how this space continues to evolve.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES TO EXPLORE Foursquare debuts Pinpoint What types of apps are using Facebook Audience Network? Twitter to offer promoted tweets, videos beyond Twitter
For questions or to request more information, please contact
[email protected] or your MEC Account Lead.
www.mecglobal.com
