For marketers, effective cross-device targeting can mean the difference between thousands of dollars in wasted ad spend and thousands (or millions!) of dollars in ROI from a campaign. What is it that makes it so make or break?
Cross-device matching for a 360° view
In today’s world, it’s more than likely that your customer isn’t only going to be navigating all the internet has to offer in one browser and on one device. In fact, their buying journey is seamless, and they navigate from desktop to mobile to tablet with ease. Their journey likely doesn’t only involve technology - offline advertising such as bus stop ads and billboards also play a part,
With all of these channels, being able to follow your customer outside of the obsolete cookie is imperative. This means that you’ll need to be able to recognize the same consumer when they interact with your brand at every touchpoint - an aspect of advertising that’s only growing in importance. Read on to find out why.
What cross-device matching can mean for your campaign
Take Kat, for example. She routinely uses the internet on her desktop computer to research workouts and exercises to target cellulite. However, a quick glance at her real world location behaviour would reflect the opposite, as she does not frequent locations that a health buff would (i.e. a gym, health food stores, etc.). If she had been segmented and targeted purely based on her browser behaviour, she would reflect wasted ad spend for the advertiser.
Let’s take a look at Sal as another example. He uses the internet on his desktop computer to book flights quite often. His real world location behaviour corroborates this activity, as he’s often seen at the airports on weekends. We can also see that he lives in a high end area in Oakville and frequents restaurants weekly in downtown Toronto - like Canoe, and Jacob’s. An advertiser looking to target buyers for men’s luxury clothing would not be disappointed with an audience of similarly inclined individuals.
Targeting across channels
As touched on above, cross-device matching means that marketers can recognize the same consumer across various touchpoints. When ti comes to your campaign, that also means that you can use cross-device matching to identify if that consumer has interacted with your offline OOH advertising, like a billboard. You can then target that same consumer whether they’re online on their computer, on their tablet, or their personal mobile device based on their previous interactions with your messaging across channels - a characteristic inherent to a successful campaign.
Opportunities for right-time messaging
Cross device matching in conjunction with location behaviour takes your advertising effectiveness one step further. Not only can marketers target a user based on their frequent visits to one location or one category of location, but they can also target based on a consumer’s presence in a location - right now. This is incredibly valuable for advertisers whose media buys could be made significantly more impactful with the right timing.
For example, an auto intender in today’s world only tends to visit the dealership when they are at the final stages of buying a vehicle. For an auto insurance provider, this information and ability to target at this stage means they can push their offering at a relevant moment for their buyer, increasing their chances of conversion and therefore ensuring their advertising spend is used efficiently. A great advertising partner will be able to provide you with continually refreshed audiences that allow you to take advantage of similar time-sensitive opportunities.