Building audiences in a data collaboration platform (DCP) seems like a very basic task, but we’ve learned that going beyond the basics can lead to even better audiences with increased engagement. We’ve compiled some tips from our audience-building experts into this list of best practices for building audiences in a DCP. Good luck!
Use the full functionality of Lotame by utilizing “nested” levels when data points are grouped together.
Levels should be used:
To create a nested level, click on the data point in the Audience Definition immediately after it is put into the audience. Any remaining data points that are added will be grouped with this first one. When you are finished with the group, click the “X” above the audience definition, to return to the main audience building screen.
Example Audience #1: M25-54 interested in specific movie genres
Audience definition:
(Male) AND (Ages 25-54) AND (Action/Adventure Movies OR Comedy Movies OR Drama Movies OR Action Television OR Adventure Television OR Comedy Television)
In this case, the third group of behaviors (Action/Adventure Movies, etc) will drop down a nested level so that each of those interests can be grouped into one set of interests. To drop down a nested level, simply add the first interest “Action/Adventure Movies” and then click on that interest in the Audience Definition. This action will drop down one level in the audience builder so that you can add as many interests as you’d like to be connected with “Or” in this group.
Once you have an audience you like and want to slightly modify it, Copy it instead of starting from scratch. This is a big time saver – and something that is often forgotten about.
If you need to create multiple audiences with Gender, Age, Geo targets, create the most complex audience first and then use the “Copy” option described above to create a second, third, fourth, and so on…where you can remove segments and modify the Audience Definition without having to start from scratch.
Audience creation is set to Extend by default, unless you have updated your personal preferences in the Lotame’s Spherical platform. Don’t forget to change Enrich to Extend, based on what you are looking to accomplish with the given audience. (For the differences between enrich vs extend, see this article.)
Leverage as many sources of third-party data as possible. Lotame has over 40 3rd party data providers, whose data is available directly inside our Data Collaboration Platform to enrich or extend your audiences.
Think about the audience request and build audiences as an expert of your own data, as a consultant. Use the search tool to find keywords to add to your audience definition. For example, for “Moms,” try “Mom,” “Children,” “Parent,” “Kids,” etc. Or, perhaps search on “Famil” which will return results that include both “Family” AND “Families.”
Audience Profile Reports (APRs) provide valuable insights about users in your audience. Use these reports to find what other attributes these users have in common and then add these additional behaviors to your Audience Definition to increase the scale.
Use the Search tool when trying to expand reach. Some individual interests and actions that have lower numbers of uniques may not be categorized into a hierarchy, but if several of them are added to an audience at one time, this could increase your reach quite a bit. Note that when you are presented with the list of behaviors that you search for, those that are already in your audience will be grayed out.
Recency: Allows you to select how recently a user exhibited a particular interest. Example: If you click on the pencil of the Sports category within your audience, you can set the recency to 30 days, which means the user had to show an interest in Sports at least one time in the last 30 days.
Frequency: Allows you to select how many times a user exhibited a particular interest. Example: If you click on the pencil of the Sports category within your audience, you can set the frequency to 3 times, which means the user had to show an interest in Sports 3 or more times. Using Recency and Frequency at the same time allows you to say – This user must have acquired the Sports interest 3 times in the last 30 days.
Recency and Frequency options are available for first-party data and Lotame Data segments only..
The “Not” function allows you to add a behavior to an audience that you DO NOT want a user to have. A good example of this is age. For alcohol ads, you can select ages 20 and under, add that group to an audience, click on the pencil next to the group of behaviors, and select NOT. Many times, users share computers, so, for example, an alcohol ad can be targeted to users 21+ but a profile on a computer may have the age of 45 as well as the age of 15 if a mother and daughter share a computer. This will prevent the alcohol ad from being displayed on this computer.
Not functionality is available for first-party data only.