5 Ad Tools for Targeting Consumers Based on Offline Behavior

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Digital advertising technology has made it relatively easy for brands to identify and segment customers based on their online behaviors—which emails they opened, which links they clicked, and even which types of devices they’re using most frequently. But the online world only makes up a small portion of a consumer’s overall life, and relatively few marketers are looking at the complete picture when they target customers with digital ads.

Offline behavioral data is becoming easier for businesses to track and manage thanks to a growing number of advertising marketplaces. Leveraging real-time location data, along with purchase histories and personal attributes, these private marketplaces are creating richer experiences through mobile and desktop advertising.

Here are five examples of tools that brands can use to target consumers based on their offline behaviors or activities.

1. xAd: Aggregate location-based audiences at scale.
A global location marketplace, xAd partnered with the technology provider and automated advertising vendor Rubicon Project this past April. Through this integration, xAd was able to create location-based mobile private marketplaces. In these marketplaces, advertisers can target “high-intent” consumers based on their locations (in real-time), as well as offline behavioral data. Advertisers can opt to receive data based on business locations near the places where they’ve bid, as well. Marketers are able to target more than 300 million unique mobile consumers based on proximity and audience attributes.

2. Zaius: Understand and act on consumer behavior.
Zaius functions as a “customer nervous system,” providing marketers with “digital intuition” for better understanding basic consumer behaviors. The company uses lifecycle stages and real-time buying signals to help marketers identify which customers they should engage, convert, and re-activate. Zaius also helps businesses discover which specific attributes or behaviors are most likely to impact a customer’s purchase. (For example, customers in certain locations or using certain devices might have a particular interest in higher priced products.) Using this data analysis, marketers can connect with customers through proactive push messaging and cross-channel engagement.

3. BlueKai: Data segmentation at a global scale.
The Oracle BlueKai Audience Data Marketplace is a data marketplace that connects businesses with more than 300 million users. Each individual customer provides more than 30,000 data attributes, which brands can parse to improve their marketing initiatives. Examples of popular data types include intent (customers who intend to buy specific products), past purchase histories, geographic locations, demographics, interests, and lifestyle categories (based on modeling). Marketers can predict how successful their campaigns will be based on the audiences they’ve chosen to target, and they can optimize their audiences based on spending goals and budgets.

4. Catalina: Use purchase histories to fuel personalized campaigns.
Catalina offers personalized digital media solutions for brands. The company targets consumers with behavior-based messages through multiple digital channels, including mobile, online, and in-store. To provide this service, Catalina uses an expansive database of shopper purchase histories, preferences, and in-store behaviors. In addition to collecting this data, Catalina also offers insights to retailers, CPG brands, and agencies into how best to activate consumers in selected demographics. A partnership with 4INFO allows Catalina to measure mobile ad campaigns through in-store sales lift, as well.

5. eXelate: Find data from specific verticals and providers.
Working for users on both the buy and sell sides, eXelate is a marketing technology vendor that offers a way to optimize advertising opportunities and connect the dots between online and offline behaviors. A Nielsen company, eXelate uses exclusive relationships with enterprise data providers to correlate how people watch television with how they behave online. The first party data-management platform also collects demographic data from online and offline publishers. Unified customer profiles connect identities across multiple formats, including display, video, audio, offline, and mobile.

Know of other advertising tools for targeting online customers based on their offline behaviors? Leave a description in the comments.

Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.

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Stephanie Miles is a journalist who covers personal finance, technology, and real estate. As Street Fight’s senior editor, she is particularly interested in how local merchants and national brands are utilizing hyperlocal technology to reach consumers. She has written for FHM, the Daily News, Working World, Gawker, Cityfile, and Recessionwire.