Real estate advertising business the REA Group is selling off its valuable first party data – allowing advertisers and their digital trading desks to more accurately target consumers in campaigns.
The ASX-listed Melbourne-headquartered firm, which owns property site realestate.com.au, has partnered up with programmatic video provider TubeMogul to help use its audience data to present more relevant video advertising.
TubeMogul’s online video platform will consolidate REA's vast pool of household transaction data, which in turn can be used by advertisers and their digital trading desks to help boost the performance of branding campaigns.
Speaking to AdNews, REA Group head of media strategy and operations Jonas Jaanimagi said the offering had been in the pipeline for two years and it had hoped to launch it earlier.
User patterns predict spend
Jaanimagi, who said the business wanted to secure a new revenue stream by leveraging its data, said the data should be particularly popular with banks and companies in the financial sector, given that first-time home owners tend to need a helping hand with finances.
“We can safely say that, after analysing millions and millions of patterns within the data, we see certain people showing certain behaviours. We know that once a particular pattern is evident, that that consumer will then go on to buy specific things at certain times,” Jaanimagi said.
REA selected TubeMogul's advertising software platform because its programmatic tools delivered the “right level of sophistication” and data protection.
Jaanimagi, who said Australians can have a tendency to put themselves down when it comes to innovation in the ad tech space, said the country is far more sophisticated in this area than many believe.
Jaanimagi said that while it's a programmatic video first for the company, it has been using programmatic technology for a couple of years.
“Our programmatic team is not just the crazy kids down in the basement, it's far more than that and is now the central part and heart of the business,” he said.
“We plan to use the TubeMogul platform to give our media customers access to our unique first-party audience and behavioural and intention data to a number of selected agency and trading desks in Australia. These partners will use our valuable and anonymised database information to inform and optimise their digital video branding campaigns.”
The partnership will involve REA Group using TubeMogul’s video software on a self-serve basis, allowing them to take full control of advertising campaigns. REA Group will also provide a video branding offering to advertisers and agencies, facilitated by its own internal programmatic trading team.
Media agency trial
REA trialled this data-driven partnership with Ikon Communications. It leveraged the real estate advertising business's home ownership and property data to feed into its digital advertising campaigns across a number of its key brand clients.
Ikon Communications head of technology Phil Cowlishaw said the data sets enabled it to create finely tuned digital campaigns based on “exactly” what consumers are looking to buy.
“This relationship gives Ikon clients a key competitive advantage, moving beyond demographic targeting, to understanding explicit online consumption behaviors,” Cowlishaw said.
Speaking to AdNews, global chief operating officer and executive chairman Australia of IPG Mediabrands, Henry Tajer, said that because the group is one of TubeMogul's largest partners, it is looking forward to seeing how this new offering can shape up for its clients.
“As a traditional publisher and a successful online real estate platform, it's great to see that REA is wise enough to partner with a programmatic partner in this way,” Tajer said.
“It makes sense and there is a certain irony in that a niche platform such as this is making such a significant move like this.”
Tajer said he thinks the industry will now see more of these types of tie-ups and that IPG's programmatic marketing business, Cadreon, will certainly be fusing with TubeMogul to give REA's data a “good test run”.
How to price data
Speaking to AdNews on REA and TubeMogul's venture, CEO at ad and media agency Switch Digital, Lee Stephens, said the use of discrete audience data for retargeting, along with the growth in mobile marketing, will be the most important digital marketing shift within the next 12 months. He said the key will be how to price the use of this data.
Stephens said an additional challenge is the cost of responding to this data in a way that changes audience behaviour and that in a “perfect world” you would target messages and offers based on particular target audience behaviours.
“Publishers are currently in market trying to charge up to $10 CPM for the use of their data, with agencies willing to pay $2 to $3 CPM,” he said.
“Unfortunately the cost and effort required to dynamically change messaging based on data is often not profitable. Regardless, the use of audience data pools will become a significant income stream for publishers over the next few years.”
Jaanimagi said the data will be split into a three-tier offering.
Jaanimagi also said it is important for REA Group to protect consumer data and have access to reporting tools in the market in order to track the performance of its customers’ digital video advertising investments.
TubeMogul Australia MD Sam Smith said the industry will continue to see the importance of better targeting and the use of data to increase the overall performance of digital video, and also reduce wastage.
“In this world of short consumer attention spans, reaching the right audience becomes more important than the spray-and-pray messaging of the past,” Smith said.
“We are thrilled to aid REA Group in providing better data-driven video advertising. I expect to see more large data providers and publishers move to commercialise their data sets using programmatic software.”
TubeMogul’s programmatic video platform has the capacity to execute campaigns that reach 12 million Australian consumers.
Jaanimagi, who hails from the UK and has previous experience at WebAds UK and Digital Look, said the new data move was not to plug any potential revenue gaps following REA's latest headlines involving hundreds of real estate agents boycotting the group.
For more news:
Foxtel programmatic deal helps boost TubeMogul revenue
Australia is leading the world in mobile programmatic growth
Foxtel takes programmatic video advertising in-house
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop me a line at pippachambers@yaffa.com.au
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