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DataXu Launches Straightforward Social Audience Targeting

Written on
Sep 26, 2011 
Author
Gavin Dunaway  |
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DataXu Launches Straightforward Social Audience Targeting

ADOTAS – If only all things in the DSP realm — nah, make that digital ad tech in general — were as straightforward as DataXu’s new DX Social, an expansion of the DSP’s audience targeting solution into the social sphere (well, Facebook for now, but Twitter and Google+ capabilities are in development). In such an uncomplicated world, I imagine I would get fewer migraines trying to untangle just what the hell so-and-so company is actually offering…

Shane Keats, DataXu director of product marketing, is in agreement about the straightforward nature of the solution: “There’s something elegant in such a simple idea. In display, we tend to overcomplicate everything. Sometimes the simplest ideas can be the most powerful.”

DX Social allows DataXu clients to apply audience insight gleaned from display campaigns into Facebook ad targeting. You got an audience that’s performing well in display? Well, just migrate that data right on over and target the same audiences on the social network.

Right now it’s not an instant transfer of display data into a Facebook campaign — while DX Social has the Facebook API integrated, the DataXu analytics team applies some “brainwork” to discover over- and under-indexing segments, which are then analyzed against Nielsen’s PRISM segments. Keats suggests this process could be automated in the next year.

But how does it perform? Well, let’s ask SimpleMobile, a prepaid mobile card outlet that applied the tech for a social branding/engagement initiative. After some successful display campaigns, the company wanted to boost engagement on Facebook (what the kids call “earn some Likes”). So working with DataXu, they applied display analytics to build targeting profiles.

Six hours after the campaign went live, Keat reports the director of digital strategy called in utter disbelief — SimpleMobile was gaining Likes at a rate of 300 an hour. The month-over-month lift in fans was 661%, with a very low erosion rate (the fancy way of saying “unlikes”). The company was so impressed, it’s already coming back for another campaign and is putting more marketing dollars into Facebook display.

But wait — there’s more to DX Social? I dunno, Keats, this is getting complicated…

No, not really — the process described above can work with the channels switched. DX Social offers clients the ability to identify the super-sharers, the ultra-engaged, on Facebook to build lookalike audiences for display campaigns.

In addition, Keats notes that DX Social can build a base of super-sharers by targeting display media to drive social actions — Likes, shares, etc — while retargeting capabilities are available to for reach clients’ most socially engaged consumers.

On a larger scale, DX Social rounds out DataXu’s platform, which broke into video with the release of version 2.0 of its DSP last September and then jumped on the mobile train back in February. In June, the company made their DSP brand friendlier through DX Brand.

However, don’t expect DataXu to simply sit back and admire its accomplishments. “We’d like to say DX Social completes the circle, but the circle keeps expanding,” Keats comments.





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