“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
— Albert Einstein
Nielsen research shows that the average American is wired-in to the Internet a whopping 12.21 hours every day. Let that sink in. That’s more than half the day. Every day. That means more than half of our life’s attention is directed at a screen.
Hours Wired into the Internet Every day
More than likely, you’re reading this thinking to yourself, “not me… I’m not online that long… not EVERY day.” I did, too. I shared that stat with my team, and we all had the same reaction, but as we studied the chart below, we realized the numbers mirrored and defined our own habits.
,SOURCE: Nielsen
And, it’s not just the millennials. I’m fifty-years-old, and I stream everything! The trajectory of media content consumption continues to shift briskly towards apps, mobile, and streaming services, or a combination thereof.
But, why does this matter? Because, for savvy marketers, these numbers can lead to the most profitable way to tell their stories and be truly heard (in the places we spend more than half of our lives).
“You are not a powerless speck of dust drifting around in the wind. Each of us are like beautiful snowflakes — unique, and born for a specific reason and purpose.”
— Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
We’ve all heard the analogies and metaphors and hoity-toity quotes about people and snowflakes, but it’s true. Individuals are like snowflakes in that they are unique and behave with unique preferences as they peruse the Internet to stream and leverage various apps.
Each activity is captured and forms what is called a digital footprint that’s unique to every person. Like a snowflake, these activities create a one-of-a-kind shape, size, and pattern, and each digital footprint is being identified and linked back to us as individuals 24/7/365. Unlike snowflakes, though, our actions — once caught — do not melt away. They stay forever.
Ok, cool. But how? Great question.
Identity resolution identifies each of our unique activity footprints left by our emails, device IDs, location services, social ID tags, and cookies, and then matches that footprint back to us. Mind blown yet? You should be. But there’s a lot more where that came from, and if you or your marketing agency isn’t using your customer data and identity resolution in your digital strategy and social plan, you have three very significant challenges ahead:
Ok, cool. But how? Great question.
Identity resolution identifies each of our unique activity footprints left by our emails, device IDs, location services, social ID tags, and cookies, and then matches that footprint back to us. Mind blown yet? You should be. But there’s a lot more where that came from, and if you or your marketing agency isn’t using your customer data and identity resolution in your digital strategy and social plan, you have three very significant challenges ahead:
1. Foggy Vision.
You don’t ever REALLY know who you are targeting when you are limiting targets to segments.
2. Evaporation of the current marketplace.
Cookies are crumbling and they, alone, support programmatic placement of digital media. As privacy-compliant browsers like Google eliminate cookies, programmatic digital approaches will vanish. Re-marketing and Programmatic digital as we know it will no longer exist once cookies are gone.
3. “Look-a-likes” are untraceable.
Justifying spend via ROI is directional, not empirical. If you are marketing to digital segments built by media providers, your spend is untraceable (unless yet another click is made and a consumer chooses to give you some personal information).
Additionally, research shows that more than 30% of those placements are shown to “bots,” which are computers hitting a website to ramp-up ad volume views and — you guessed it — the cost for your placement.
Now is the time.
Leverage the consumer intelligence found in your customer database and harness its predictive power through online identity resolution. We’re ready when you are.
Here’s how blu can help.
First, we analyze your data. More than 3,000 data points (including income, life stage, credit capacity, purchase trends, and about 2,994 others) that indicate character traits and predict behaviors to really get to KNow your best customers. Then, we are able to build custom audiences, and use Online Identity Resolution to connect hundreds of identifiers from different channels, platforms and devices, which enable us to make informed and specific decisions both online and offline…at the same time. Then, we use people-based marketing (we never market to groups or cookies) to send messages to YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS (people who are proven to be most receptive to your brand).
Chad Stubbs
Chief Innovator | Reflex Blu
Driven by a passion to connect people with innovation and excellence, Chad Stubbs launched Reflex Blu in 1999. His “creatalytical” vision of leveraging creative and analytic excellence is at the heart of blu’s continuously innovative culture. Chad has been the strategic lead on countless brands over the past 20 years, and he still gets a thrill out of building profitable customer journeys for the brands we serve at blu.
