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BlueKai, data targeting campaign

Written on
Mar 9, 2009 
Author
George H. Simpson  |
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BlueKai, data targeting campaign

datacenter.jpgADOTAS — BlueKai, an intent-focused data exchange which launched in September 2008, says that with access to over 100 million unique buyers, it has become the largest source of user intent data available to online marketers, ad networks and publishers. Focused primarily on consumer intent in retail, auto and travel, BlueKai partners with data sellers to aggregate anonymous shopping and research behaviors across the Internet and auctions that data to drive monetization in a privacy-friendly way, enabling buyers to boost ad targeting quality and scale.

We asked Grant Ries, BlueKai’s Chief revenue officer for more details:

We know that ad exchanges are places where publishers make available inventory to the highest bidder and advertisers buy audience of target customers or prospects, exactly what IS a data exchange?

A data exchange is similar to an ad exchange in that it aggregates something to sell at scale via an auction model to marketers. The difference is what the “something” is. Ad exchanges aggregate ad inventory, data exchanges aggregate data from commerce sites and offer them at scale to marketers. This is a departure from the online targeting that we know where inventory is always packaged with the promise of targeting a particular audience. By separating data from the equation, this means several things:

Fundamental problem in targeting today is that people are afraid to go granular because they lack the data scale. That forces them to add less granular or poor quality data to build scale. We’ve fixed that by aggregating data at scale from large quality sources so it’s now safe to target away and not have to compromise on scale.

Bridging the gap between commerce sites with valuable data and marketers and ad networks who are hungry for data to drive in-market prospecting. The key is doing this in a fair exchange.

Incremental site revenue – with a data exchange, publishers don’t need additional inventory – this is complementary to their ad exchange revenue stream

A clear understanding and control over what drives targeting for a particular campaign or segment, down to segmentation such as auto make and model, travel departure city, destination, retail product by category or brand.

This sounds somewhat like a form of behavioral targeting; with the FTC pressing for higher industry privacy standards, where do you stand on protecting the consumer?

BlueKai’s mission is to build the world’s most comprehensive registry of online preferences that is dedicated to ensuring consumers’ anonymity and privacy. We conform to and exceed the NAI principal for consumer privacy:

Transparency: we show consumers what anonymous data has been collected

Choice: Ability for consumers to edit their preferences

No PII collected (only anonymous data)

No sensitive data collected (health, gambling, etc…)

Disclosure: Partner privacy policy clearly discloses practice

Taking consumer transparency a step further, BlueKai has also created the BlueKai Registry, where consumers can view anonymous data that has been collected about them through our partners. They can choose to opt-out, or remove preference that are not relevant, and then select a charity to have a donation sent to, based on a % of advertising dollars gained by their anonymous data.

What proof do you have that buy and selling intent data works for publishers and advertisers?

In the auto vertical, an auto manufacturer who ran a BlueKai and InterCLICK data-powered campaign across the InterCLICK ad network saw results that were 2-3x better than contextual or demographic targeting. Their campaign even outperformed advertiser re-targeting, while delivering much higher reach. Their auto campaign was targeted to reach people who were in-market to purchase a specific type of car, including specific brands and an audience of 3.1 million unique users was assembled in less than one month.

We’ve also received phenomenal anecdotal feedback from data buyers across the travel and retail verticals and are working to get them out to the industry in the upcoming months. In the meantime, we urge marketers to test, test and test.

Give me a short history of the company.

BlueKai’s vision for a consumer-conscious data exchange was formed by our team of seasoned executives who bring decades of experience from the online advertising, behavioral targeting, and data mining industries. After years of chasing advertising dollars and creating products and technology to optimize targeting and performance, they all recognized that the key and value was in the data. They also collectively believed that the focus and ability to target in-market audiences was the answer to a myriad of marketers seeking consumers who are about to buy. That’s the genesis of the BlueKai Exchange, an online data marketplace where online marketers, ad networks and publishers can buy quality and reliable data to influence in-market targeting across the Internet. To raise the bar on data integrity and purity, BlueKai only works with trusted top tier data sellers including several of the top online travel agencies, retail and auto destinations on the Internet.

What have you got in the works coming up in the next six months?

The BlueKai Data Exchange is quickly gaining traction in the industry. Our goal in the coming months will be to increase advertisers’ understanding and adoption of data targeting and also do our part to make it easy for them to run data-smart campaigns through advanced optimization.

On the privacy front, we will continue to work with our key partners to increase awareness of the BlueKai Registry and the quest to bring more transparency, control and participation to the consumer.

– Express your opinion, comment below.





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