Customer Experience 2019 (Part 1)—Audience Segmentation and Targeting

The Building Blocks of a Better Customer Experience (A 4-Part Series)

Executive Summary

To deliver an effective customer experience, marketers must first know who their customers and audiences are. This report focuses on how marketers identify audience segments and target groups today.

How do companies segment audiences today?

Most companies invest ample time and research into understanding their customers. And most have created broader segments or personas that the bulk of their customers can be mapped to. However, not all companies have mapped or identified these personas to segments and targets for digital and addressable media.

How are marketers identifying and targeting the right audience segments in digital and addressable media?

Marketers can use any number of data sets for their segmentation efforts. Most initially build their segments by starting with first- or third-party data, layering in added data sets as needed. The most-used data sets typically help marketers answer two core questions: Who is my audience? And how engaged is that audience with my brand today?

Shouldn’t marketers also care about how their audiences could or should engage with their brand in the future?

Absolutely. In fact, many companies increasingly rely on predictive analytics and machine learning to optimize and adjust their segmentation strategies.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report focuses on how marketers identify and build audience segments within digital and addressable media.

KEY STAT: Investment in the tools needed to access or act on audience data is on the rise. Winterberry Group in partnership with the IAB found nearly four out of five US companies planned to increase spend on audience data and related data activation solutions this year.

Here’s what’s in the full report

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35expert perspectives

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Table of Contents

  1. Executive Summary
  2. The Customer Experience Imperative
  3. Audience Segmentation for Digital and Addressable Advertising
  4. Turning Personas into Segments for Digital and Addressable Media
  1. Putting It Together: First- vs. Third-Party Data
  2. Key Takeaways
  3. eMarketer Interviews
  4. Read Next
  1. Sources
  2. Media Gallery

Interviewed for This Report

Dennis Becker
Mobivity
CEO
Interviewed April 23, 2019
Brad Birnbaum
Kustomer
Founder, CEO
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Emily Blair
Goodway Group
Vice President, Strategy
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Jane Clarke
Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM)
CEO, Managing Director
Interviewed April 22, 2019
Karen Cohen
AppsFlyer
Director, Product Marketing
Interviewed April 24, 2019
Carolyn Corda
Adara
CMO
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Devon DeBlasio
Neustar
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Interviewed April 23, 2019
Ric Elert
Conversant
President
Interviewed April 22, 2019
Michael Fisher, Ed.D.
Fluent Dialog
President
Interviewed April 4, 2019
Ryan Fleisch
Adobe
Head of Product Marketing, Advertising Cloud DSP
Interviewed April 26, 2019
Jason Grunberg
Sailthru
Vice President, Marketing
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Dave Grzelak
The Shipyard
Chief Strategy Officer
Interviewed April 24, 2019
Steve Gutentag
ThirtyMadison
Co-Founder, CEO
Interviewed April 29, 2019
Tony Hudson
Civis Analytics
Media Solutions Lead
Interviewed April 16, 2019
Dan Jaye
aqfer
Co-Founder, CEO
Interviewed May 20, 2019
Nick Jordan
Narrative I/O
Founder, CEO
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Oz Lang
Adobe
Director, Product Management, Advertising Cloud TV
Interviewed April 26, 2019
Katie Malone
Civis Analytics
Director, Data Science Research and Development
Interviewed April 16, 2019
Shane McAndrew
Mindshare US
Chief Data Strategy Officer
Interviewed April 24, 2019
Edwin Miranda
KOI IXS
CEO
Interviewed April 24, 2019
Jackie Mockridge Mattina
360i
Senior Vice President, Consumer Insights and Analysis
Interviewed April 26, 2019
April Mullen
Selligent Marketing Cloud
Director, Consumer-First Marketing Adoption
Interviewed April 25, 2019
John Nardone
Flashtalking
CEO
Interviewed April 24, 2019
Doug Novack
Google
Managing Director, Business and Industrial Markets
Interviewed May 3, 2019
Chris O’Hara
Salesforce
Vice President, Product Marketing, Marketing Cloud
Interviewed April 15, 2019
Aubrie Pagano
Bow and Drape
Co-Founder, CEO
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Jen Parbus
Neo
Partner, Director
Interviewed April 25, 2019
Alexis Perlmutter
Civis Analytics
Lead Product Manager
Interviewed April 16, 2019
Fabian Seelbach
Curology
CMO
Interviewed April 30, 2019
John Stauffer
DEG Digital
Managing Director, Strategic Planning and Channel Strategy
Interviewed April 23, 2019
Todd Thompson
RRD Marketing Solutions
Senior Vice President of Data, Insights and Customer Engagement
Interviewed April 24, 2019
Mark Weinstein
Hilton
Senior Vice President and Global Head of Customer Engagement, Loyalty and Partnerships
Interviewed May 30, 2019
Jonathan Williams
Civis Analytics
Applied Data Science Lead
Interviewed April 16, 2019
Jay Tandan
Ben & Jerry’s
US Digital Marketing Manager
Interviewed April 22, 2019
Ziggy Zografakis
dataxu
Director, Marketplace Partnerships
Interviewed April 23, 2019

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authors

Lauren Fisher

Contributors

Ross Benes
Analyst
Lucy Koch
Junior Analyst
Nicole Perrin
Principal Analyst
Jillian Ryan
Principal Analyst
Tracy Tang
Senior Researcher