When People-Based Targeting Is Too Difficult, Household-Level Targeting Is the Effective Alternative

People-based targeting is the holy grail, but many marketers know that this approach is neither foolproof nor ideal for all campaigns. eMarketer’s Lauren Fisher spoke with Michael Hayes, chief revenue officer and CMO of location platform UberMedia, about why true one-to-one targeting is still in its infancy and why the household is still the focal point for many marketers. Hayes was interviewed as part of eMarketer’s July report, "Ad Targeting 2018: Households, Individuals or Both? Why a Blended Approach is Often the Answer."

Individual-level targeting is hard to do, but it’s not impossible. For one, there are some legal issues and privacy issues with individual-level targeting that tend to get murky. Individuals also often have more than one device—a smartphone and a tablet, and an Xbox at home. There are a bunch of device IDs related to those devices. And even then, tablets are shared, home computers are often shared, TVs are shared and a Roku is shared.