In addition to upgrading its publisher-side data management platform with some slick new tools (including social data integrations), Krux Digital announced today that it’s gone global, now providing services for European and Japanese media companies. We caught up with Director of Client Services Brian Buizer to discuss some of the platform’s new features and ruminate on pubs’ biggest big-data-related challenges.
What publisher woes is Krux aiming at easing with these platform updates?
Publishers are facing many challenges these days, losing control of audience assets chief among them. Other players in the market have become quite adept at data skimming and data-driven media buying and selling. This is happening on the buy side, from middlemen like networks and exchanges, and others, and it leads to price erosion for direct ad sales, loss of market share overall, and potential risks to privacy.
Krux delivers the infrastructure required to respond to the new dynamics of the digital media market, helping publishers and website operators capture, control, and connect consumer data across all screens and sources. Ultimately, we help they can reassert ownership of their hard-won audience assets and then put those assets to work in driving more relevant and more valuable advertising, content, and commerce experiences.
What is Audience Authoring and how does it work? How would a publisher use the tool?
“Audience authoring” is the core segmentation infrastructure within our Audience Data Control platform. It allows publishers and website operators to:
- bring together all of the disparate data sources they have access to: first-party (e.g., their own data), second-party (e.g., from trusted partners, like marketers), and third-party (e.g., data sellers).
- gain a broad and deep view into who those users are, such as demographic characteristics, content interests, loyalty and engagement, social activities, and intent.
- turn that insight into action by creating high-value audience segments for use in targeting advertising, content, or commerce activities.
Can you explain how Social Analytics and Social Segments offer publishers insight into data from social media?
Krux is always looking for ways to make the audience discovery process more efficient and to enable audience segmentation strategies that are more valuable for a website operator’s business. Social Analytics and Social Segments support this by tapping into the hugely valuable social data available to most website operators.
Social data holds huge potential to illuminate what users respond to, where their interests lie, and who the influencers are within a community of users. This can be used to deepen engagement and creating more valuable audience relationships. Social data also represents something that marketers place a premium on, whether in identifying specific consumer interests or in reaching users who are just more “social.”
Social activity is one of the most precise indicators of consumer interest, affinity, and intent. The good news for website operators is that a ready supply of “like” and “share” and “tweet” activity happens on their web properties every day. Social Analytics and Social Segments allow them to analyze that activity, feed it into their segmentation strategy, and put it to work delivering more personal, more relevant, and more valuable web experiences.
What big data challenges are publishers most likely to face this year?
The biggest big data challenge publishers face is in web experience management. The web is becoming more personal, that’s undeniable. And despite the significant – and appropriate – amount of attention paid to privacy concerns, users have a strong desire for more relevant, more intelligent online interactions. Amazon is the perfect example of this, developing trusted user relationships and delivering very personal recommendations and offers, all while never really feeling invasive or creepy.
Everyone on the web should be instrumenting business models that are more personal and audience-aware, and Krux supports this shift to a more personal web. Our highly scalable, cloud-based platform allows website operators to put consumer data and audience insight to work responsibly, delivering safer, smarter, cooler, faster web experiences.
Brian Buizer is an online media veteran and industry expert on audience segmentation and media data strategy. He has worked in all aspects of digital media sales, operations, and technology. Brian joined Krux earlier this year to lead its Advisory Services efforts. He spends his days helping publishers and website operators drive new revenue from data by using it to enhance content, commerce, and advertising experiences. Prior to Krux, Brian spent many years as a leader within the IDG operations team, instrumental to shaping the company’s audience data strategy. You can connect with him at [email protected].