Not just smarter. Faster too
Efficiency usually means doing things better, but often also means doing things faster. In the latest article for our data collaboration series, LiveRamp VP of Sales UK Graham Tricker discusses how the approach can bring the benefits of speed and resource savings.
Much of the attention around data collaboration focuses on its role as a replacement for third-party cookie-based targeting. But it can also dramatically speed up the media planning process behind that targeting, improving efficiency as well as effectiveness.
This is a different kind of efficiency from the one I mentioned in my previous post (Three key areas where data collaboration can unlock business value). Then, I talked about media efficiency, bringing data together to ensure messages reach the right person at the right time. The example I gave was how British Gas collaborated with its media partners to use its own first-party data to suppress advertising to existing customers, adding an estimated 10% incremental value to the campaign.
However, data collaboration can also improve operational efficiency. We see this when clients use it in their own marketing and in the retail media networks they operate.
Increasing efficiency in your own marketing…
Boots used to execute a mere 7% of its digital media budget against its own first-party data before they started working with us. Now that figure has risen to 60%. That’s because data collaboration has made the process so much quicker and easier.
In the old days, Boots’ agency would identify specific audiences they wanted to target as part of a campaign. Some of the most valuable might come from Boots Advantage card data. However, the process of getting to them was very clunky. The agency would talk to their contacts within Boots, who would then put an audience brief into their data science team. That team would build the audience by hand and then manually push that audience into a destination (Google, for example). Then, once the audience was available, the team would execute the campaign. All this could take a few weeks going back and forth, and it didn’t allow for scaling.
Using a platform like LiveRamp means the agency can query and garner insights and build audiences with autonomy on consented first-party data to use in a privacy-centric way to improve the campaign experience. The agency team logs into the platform in the morning and activates a campaign by the afternoon. That significantly reduces the time and resources required for the campaign. In addition, the data scientists are free to do more valuable work, and ultimately, the brand can leverage more of its first-party data within digital media in a privacy-conscious way.
…and in your partners’
It’s a similar scenario in retail media. Data collaboration tools allow managed service retail media offerings to mine their parent retailer’s data more efficiently.
For example, a CPG company might go to a Retail Media Network like Boots Media Group or Tesco Media & Insight to run a campaign for a specific brand targeting a specific audience or audiences. Once again, without a platform like LiveRamp, they would have to hire data scientists to build an audience by hand.
That becomes very inefficient when trying to scale up because it’s an iterative process that can take several weeks. LiveRamp gives business users simple, self-service tools to trade custom audiences without needing internal technical resources, making it a very efficient way to deliver those campaigns. In addition, the measurement tools within these platforms connect all the retailer transaction data with the campaign exposure data, meaning they can provide self-serve reports very efficiently.
Delivering a retail media business and showcasing suppliers’ return on investment also requires considerable cost sensitivity. RMNs need to optimise that delivery, and we’re working on this with many of our partners.
Of course, the British Gas example shows that efficiency and effectiveness go hand in hand. Delivering the right message to the right person at the right time yields greater effectiveness because you’re reaching the people most likely to buy. It also results in greater efficiency because you’re not messaging people who aren’t going to buy. So next time, we’ll look at some business examples from the effectiveness side of the equation.