Big data helping online advertisers find small targets

It's well known that the ads you see when you browse the web are targeted using a number of parameters, but that level of targeting is about to get a whole lot more sophisticated.

tMi9, the new umbrella company for ninemsn and related brands has significantly ramped up its ability to segment its customer base using its own data, and has added a whole new dimension with the integration of third party demographic data.

According to Mi9 CEO, Mark Britt: "We used to say to advertisers 'you can target against 40 segments in Australia'. That was last November. By December/January that became 16,000 segments. Now it has reached the point where there are an unlimited number of segments. But it is still our data that we are using."

The company has now integrated its own systems for customer segmentation with Experian Mosaic, a demographic planning tool of the Australian population widely used by media buyers. It is heralding the move as a game changer in the world of online advertising.

Announcing the partnership with Experian Mosaic, Britt said: "We think is a step change in the way in which online media works. In the last few months our team has been working with Experian and has done a complete mapping of the 10 million ninemsn users with the full Mosaic map…We know other publishers have tried to dot this integration but have been unable to do it."

Britt explained: "What marketers have done is to use Mosaic as a planning tool to work out which people care about their brand and then go and try and find media outlets where some of those people might be.

"Starting this week, for the first time, Australian marketers no longer have to guess where to find those users they want to get to. They can explicitly target the segment they want."

Mosaic, according to Experian "is a geo-demographic profiling tool that uses aggregated consumer data to provide highly predictive insight of the Australian population. Mosaic categorises the Australian population into 11 'Groups' and 47 'Types' (finer classifications within a Group)."

For example, Group C is 'Young Ambition', "Educated and high-earning young singles and sharers in the inner suburbs." Within Group C are three types:

- C09 Bright Futures: "Thriving students or professionals renting flats and terraces";

- C10 Graduating Upwards: "Young high-earning socialites in high-rise apartments, often close to water";

- C11 Rising Wealth: "Educated and affluent young professional couples in inner city areas."

For each group and type Mosaic provides additional information spanning household age, relationships and education; housing type, tenure, property values and size; household incomes, rental and loan costs; and favourite hobbies and activities, media consumption and social attitudes.

And it's not going to stop there. Britt hinted that Mi9 was looking at integrating other third party databases.

Such integration can only increase the effectiveness of online advertising in comparison to traditional, more scattergun approaches, and accelerate the shift of advertising spend from traditional media to online.

Britt said "Over the next three years the online market is expected to grow at 40 percent CAGR. We are looking at some point in the next eight months when online becomes the dominant media in Australia." That's good news for forests, but the shift from print to online is creating some structural issues."

It's also going to create lots of privacy issues. Companies providing access to you for advertisers will likely soon know more about your purchasing preferences than you are consciously aware of.

This article first appeared on iTWire, Australia's leading independent IT&T news and information source.