SnapChat will soon offer behavioral targeting options to its advertisers, according to an eMarketer report referenced by BusinessInsider. SnapChat Director of Revenue Operations, Clement Xue, said in the report that SnapChat was going to launch behavioral targeting capabilities by the end of September.
Per BI, SnapChat will initially based all of its behavioral targeting on what a user does within the app and not aggregate data from other sources. Unlike most social media apps such as Facebook and Twitter, SnapChat only is available on mobile devices, making cookie data inaccessible for them because cookies don’t work on certain devices and browsers and don’t function at all within mobile apps. Other social apps which have a desktop presence can use cookies to add to their behavioral data by following a user around as they go to various websites.
The behavioral data likely to be offered will be based on who a user follows, especially industry specific interests, such as a certain type of music entertainer. Record labels could then use that data to reach a more likely consumer of a singers music they represent. Advertisers already have data from SnapChat related to the age, gender and geo location of users, so behavioral data will simply add to the mix.
In order to make their behavioral data more robust SnapChat will have to obtain web browsing data which they have already made the first moves toward by introducing a “Login with SnapChat” button on its recently acquired Bitmoji Keyboard app.
This could be the beginning of SnapChat becoming another login option, similar to the Google or Facebook login’s seen all around the web and apps. This would give SnapChat a tremendous amount of behavioral data beyond the small amount that is usable based on in-app follows.
SnapChat Continues to Grow Amazingly Fast
A new report by eMarketer, “Snapchat Advertising: A Roadmap for US Brand Marketers and Digital Agency Executives,” predicts continued huge growth for SnapChat. SnapChat sees itself as a photo app combined with social connectivity and its mostly young user base certainly agrees. “We’re like a camera company,” said Bryan Kim, manager of Snapchat’s strategy group. “And we encourage creativity, which is why there are so many creative tools on our platform—doodles, geofilters, stickers and lenses.”
The eMarketer report “projects 58.6 million US consumers will use Snapchat at least once per month in 2016.” This equates to 28.3% of US smartphone users and 18.1% of the entire US population, which is nearly double the use estimated only 2 years ago. eMarketer is predicting that this kind of growth will continue over the next 4 years.
Forrester has put out a new report commissioned by Silverpop, surveying 157 U.S. marketers on behavioral data and automation.
“Of the findings, the most notable might be that while marketers who leverage buyer insight / data in their campaigns experience significant biz benefits above their peers, behavioral data still remains, per Forrester, ‘the greatest untapped marketing asset’—with only 45% actually capturing this data in a way that’s both efficient and actionable,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Having data is important, but remember, brands have to be able to use it—this means consolidating it within a single unified database for easy handling, etc. ”
Essentially marketers have a lot of data, but it’s inherently disorganized and messy.
The study was conducted in May, and found that when asked to assess the potential gain of taking specific actions with prospective customers based on their behaviors across channels, ROI and customer satisfaction/loyalty were the biggest perceived benefits (44%/42%).
It also found that behavioral marketers are getting more sales. In the B2B space, they attributed 34% of total sales pipelines to behavioral marketing (about 10% higher than their peers at 26%). B2C marketers attributed 26% of their revenues to their behavioral programs (with peers at just 21%).
“While marketers have come a long way in automating their efforts, not all are using marketing automation at its full potential and incorporating buyer behavior into their campaigns in order to deliver the most personal and engaging customer experiences possible,” said Bryan Brown, Silverpop director of product strategy. “Data is the fuel that powers today’s digital marketing campaigns and no insight is more valuable than what buyers tell you based on the actions they take. By capturing and then quickly acting on this behavioral data, marketers can form very rewarding individual relationships that lead to revenue and a deep sense of loyalty that can last a lifetime.”
Remember Google’s interest-based advertising? You know, where they serve you ads based on your browsing history, and allow advertisers to behaviorally target users? It has now rolled out on a mass scale after a two-year beta run. All advertisers can now utilize this targeting.
The way Google’s Interest-based advertising works is that sites that join the Google Display Network (which includes Google’s Display partners, YouTube, and specific Google properties that display Adwords ads), and serve ads to users based on browsing history. Google’s Display Network and Search Network are separate, and combine to make up the entire Google Network, but advertisers have the option of running their ads on the Google Network.
On the Inside AdWords blog, Google Display Network Product Manager Jon Krafcik writes:
We’ve been slowly expanding the availability of this feature, and as of today, interest categories are now available to all AdWords advertisers. It works like this: our system looks at the types of pages a user visits, taking into account how recently and frequently those pages have been visited, and then associates their browser with relevant interest categories. Using these categories, you can show ads to the people most likely to purchase your products or services, and you can reach them across all types of sites in the Google Display Network in addition to contextually relevant sites.
With over 1,000 interest categories from ecotourism to mobile phones, we’re confident you’ll find a category that fits your business. And with over 500 million users interested in these categories who visit the Display Network every day, you’ll be able to reach a huge number of potential customers. You pay only for clicks or impressions at auction prices, as always. Our beta advertisers have used interest categories to successfully meet all kinds of goals, from an advertiser increasing brand lift by 40% to a shoe retailer driving 400% more conversions at a lower advertising cost per sale.
Google claims that the Display Network reaches 70% of unique Internet users around the world. “The Display Network has the advantage of reaching potential customers at different points of the buying cycle,” Google says. “Not every potential customer is focused on conducting a search. Not every visitor is ready to buy at a given moment. The advertiser’s challenge is to capture their attention at the right time. For example, a user might begin a search for digital cameras with just an interest in reading reviews. While reading a review, though, that user might note the ads of online retailers or click on the ads themselves. With search-only advertising, this customer would have been missed.”
The addition of interest-based advertising should theoretically help the advertiser in reaching the customer at the right time.
Privacy
Here’s a video Google put out about privacy as it relates to interest-based advertising, back in ’09:
Google users can edit the categories of ads they wish to be shown. I’m not sure the average user will know to do this or even think about it, but Google has a page where you can go and adjust this, or even opt-out entirely. Right now, Google has me set up to view ads from the following categories: celebrities and entertainment news, online video, advertising and marketing, Internet software, Mac OS, search engines, SEO and marketing, business news, politics, and social networks.
While these categories, I would imagine are relevant enough to me, I would hardly say they’re representative of my interests at large or even my web use at large. Google will let us add (or remove) categories, as we like, however. You can add sub-categories from Arts & Entertainment, Autos & Vehicles, Beauty & Fitness, Books & Literature, Business & Industrial, Computers & Electronics, Finance, Food & Drink, Games, Hobbies & Leisure, Home & Garden, Internet & Telecom, Jobs & Education, Law & Government, News, Online Communities, People & Society, Pets & Animals, Real Estate, Reference, Science, Shopping, Sports, Travel, World Localities, and Demographics.
The interests are associated with the advertising cookie that’s stored in your web browser. When you opt out, Google disables your cookie and no longer associates interest and demographic categories with your browser. Your ads are likely to be less relevant as a result. Here’s another privacy video from Google talking specifically about cookies:
The “Keep my opt-outs” plugin is essentially a “Do Not Track” mechanism that lets users opt out from receiving personalized ads as they browse the web. More on this here.
Competition
As Facebook becomes an increasingly attractive alternative for online ad spending, Google is smart to ramp up its targeting abilities, although I’m not sure they match the targeting power of Facebook’s. Google’s is much more about timing, which can certainly be effective, but in reality can be hit or miss. Facebook has the advantage of all its users “likes” which can really be far more representative of their “interests” than simply listing somewhat broad categories in their Google settings.
For example, with Facebook Ads, I can create an ad that targets 21-year-old males who live in Lexington, KY, and Like the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” the band “My Morning Jacket,” and drink “Pabst Blue Ribbon”. That can be pretty powerful. There’s a reason these ads are gaining popularity, particularly among local businesses. I report from MerchantCircle this month found that 22% of local merchants have used Facebook Ads, and that two-thirds of them would use them again.
The FTC is said to be sending out requests for information from companies that deal with Google, and it will be very interesting to see which companies these include. Google will argue things like “the competition is a click away,” and probably that it’s main competitor Bing (using Microsoft AdCenter, which is also powering Yahoo search advertising) continues to gain market share from month to month. In online advertising alone, Google may also point to an increasingly popular Facebook advertising platform, as Facebook is clearly a force to be reckoned with on the web with its nearly 700 million registered users (yes, the number is disputed, but there’s not denying that Facebook is an enormous force).
