Have you ever wondered how some brands seem to know exactly what you want, when you want it, and how to deliver it to you?
How do they manage to send you relevant offers, recommendations, and messages across different channels and devices? The answer is addressable marketing.
Addressable marketing is a strategy that allows you to use media to target specific individuals, rather than large groups of anonymous audiences.
It’s similar to direct mail, in that each marketing message is tied to an individual’s personally identifiable information (PII), such as name, email, or mailing address.
However, the concept is much more difficult to execute online, where consumers travel across many websites via multiple devices.
When leveraged successfully, addressable marketing helps you create one-to-one conversations with your customers and prospects, create a better customer experience, and reduce wasted media spend.
In this article, we’ll discuss what addressable marketing is, how it can benefit your business, and what are the best tools and platforms to use for this strategy.
What is Addressable Marketing?
Addressable marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses customer data to deliver personalized ads to individual consumers across multiple online advertising platforms, social media, OTT (Over the Top) content providers, and smart TV platforms.
The process starts with an advertiser’s database of PII—typically from a CRM of current and prospective customers—that’s appended with additional demographic, behavioral, and transactional data available to advertisers.
These rich audience segments allow marketers to then create personalized messaging down to the consumer level.
For example, if a consumer signs up for a new phone plan from AT&T, that company’s marketing department will know the purchaser’s name, email, and address.
They may also know that people who purchase that particular plan have a high propensity to upgrade to DirecTV about six months later.
With that knowledge, AT&T can serve a highly relevant ad to individual consumers at a controlled frequency across multiple devices and channels to drive a cross-sell conversion.
To facilitate that one-to-one conversation, the marketer must first have direct access to the consumers.
Finding ways to achieve this was a challenge, prior to the rise of addressable digital media opportunities, because the only way to have a persistent conversation with these consumers was through channels such as email and direct mail.
Today, many online advertising platforms—such as Facebook—have access to consumer PII and engage with users across multiple devices, which enables them to match individuals across devices at scale.
They’ll know if a user logs in on a computer, mobile phone, or tablet and how often they do so.
Connecting this data with outside CRMs creates an opportunity to resolve a user’s identity, and provides marketers with the opportunity to reach these high-value targets with relevant messaging.
Benefits of Addressable Marketing
Whichever method is selected, addressable marketing creates a host of benefits for consumers and marketing departments alike, starting with an improved customer experience.
When you know who a prospect or customer is and where they are, it’s possible to serve them targeted, relevant messages that will add value and enhance their relationship with your brand.
This can lead to higher engagement, loyalty, retention, and conversion rates. Another benefit of addressable marketing is that it saves you money by delivering ads only to audiences of your most likely customers.
This reduces the amount of wasted impressions, clicks, and conversions that you would otherwise spend on people who are not interested in your product or service.
You can also optimize your ad spend by adjusting your bids, frequency, and creative based on the performance of each segment.
Additionally, addressable marketing enables you to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns more accurately.
You can track the response and behavior of each individual consumer across different channels and devices, and attribute the results to your marketing efforts.
This can help you optimize your campaigns, test different variables, and calculate your return on investment (ROI).
Best Tools and Platforms for Addressable Marketing
To implement addressable marketing, you need to have access to the right tools and platforms that can help you collect, manage, and activate your customer data.
Here are some of the best options available in the market:
- Customer Data Platform (CDP): A CDP is a software that aggregates and organizes customer data from various sources, such as CRM, website, email, social media, and offline transactions. It creates a unified and persistent customer profile that can be used for segmentation, personalization, and analytics. A CDP can also integrate with other platforms, such as DMPs, DSPs, and SSPs, to enable addressable marketing across different channels and devices. Some examples of CDPs are Segment, Tealium, and mParticle.
- Data Management Platform (DMP): A DMP is a software that collects and analyzes anonymous customer data, such as cookies, device IDs, IP addresses, and geolocation. It creates audience segments based on various attributes, such as demographics, interests, behaviors, and intents. A DMP can also enrich the data with third-party sources, such as data brokers, to provide more insights and reach. A DMP can then connect with other platforms, such as DSPs, SSPs, and ad exchanges, to enable addressable marketing across different publishers and networks. Some examples of DMPs are Oracle Data Cloud, Adobe Audience Manager, and Salesforce Audience Studio.
- Demand Side Platform (DSP): A DSP is a software that allows advertisers to buy and manage digital ad inventory from various sources, such as ad exchanges, ad networks, and SSPs. It uses the data from CDPs and DMPs to target and bid on the most relevant and valuable impressions for each audience segment. A DSP can also optimize the campaigns based on the performance and goals of the advertiser. Some examples of DSPs are Google Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk, and MediaMath.
- Supply Side Platform (SSP): An SSP is a software that allows publishers to sell and manage their digital ad inventory to various buyers, such as DSPs, ad networks, and ad exchanges. It uses the data from CDPs and DMPs to segment and price the inventory based on the quality and value of each impression. An SSP can also optimize the inventory based on the demand and competition of the buyers. Some examples of SSPs are Google Ad Manager, PubMatic, and Magnite.
Conclusion
Addressable marketing is a powerful strategy that can help you reach your ideal customers with personalized ads that match their needs, preferences, and behaviors.
It can also help you improve your customer experience, save your ad spend, and measure your campaign effectiveness.
To implement addressable marketing, you need to have access to the right tools and platforms that can help you collect, manage, and activate your customer data.
By using a combination of CDPs, DMPs, DSPs, and SSPs, you can create and execute addressable marketing campaigns across multiple online advertising platforms, social media, OTT, and smart TV platforms.