As the market moves from an understanding of the basics to a deeper level of insight, it’s a good time to re-evaluate your data onboarding strategy. Are you getting as much true audience reach as you should? Are you getting audience reach at the considerable expense of accuracy where performance of your audiences is suffering?

Marketers use an onboarding provider to take their offline CRM universe and convert it into a digital audience for online targeting. This strategy makes sense and can pay big dividends. But the focus should not be only on cookies.

Your CRM onboarding strategy should be multi-faceted in order to reach your customers across all forms of digital media. The basic premise of converting an offline file of names, postal addresses and/or email addresses into a targetable digital audience via cookies or other methods may sound simple, however, there are a number of complex factors that are not immediately easy to recognize.

Oracle Data Cloud is here to help sort through the information and help you get a better understanding of data onboarding for your campaigns.

Download the White Paper, “Data Onboarding – A Deeper Dive Into An Under-Utilized Strategy” and dive into the nuances and questions that advertisers should be asking.

When it comes to new customer acquisition and campaign success, what are the key takeaways to learn from? Campaigns that effectively attract new buyers may do it at the expense of immediate campaign returns.

Successful brands understand the long-term value of new customers. And they look to metrics like Penetration Lift to gauge success in these situations.

• Of campaigns that failed to drive incremental sales, 33% generated a statistically significant lift in Penetration Rate, according to stats from 500 recent Oracle Data Cloud studies.

• Existing buyers of a brand spend twice as much and generate 4x more incremental sales per household, relative to new buyers.

Pop quiz: do the numbers below indicate that the campaign was a success or a failure?

The answer to this question usually depends on which side of the advertising fence you’re on. Media providers typically look at these results as an unmitigated disaster, while advertisers are much more likely to see the silver lining. There’s no denying that a ROAS of 0.1x – indicating that the sales generated by the campaign only cover 10% of its costs – is not so great. To get the full story though, you also need to consider the lift in penetration.

How Can a Campaign have Strong Penetration Lift but Weak ROAS?

If you are trying a new razor for the first time, do you buy the 2 cartridge trial pack or the 12 cartridge refill? When we looked at consumer buying behavior across hundreds of CPG brands, we found that new buyers of a brand spent 48% less relative to existing buyers. We see a similar relationship when we look at sales lift - the dollar per household increase caused by the campaign – where existing buyers generate close to 4x the lift per household of new buyers.

These numbers suggest a tradeoff between generating incremental sales and acquiring new customers. Of the campaigns in our Norms database that failed to drive incremental sales, 33% generated a statistically significant lift in Penetration Rate. In these cases, it’s especially important to remember that ROAS compares the cost of a campaign to the immediate return it generates; future sales that result from attracting new customers may not be included in the calculation.

Key Takeaways

While ROAS is a useful metric for gauging the immediate impact of a campaign, metrics such as Penetration Lift and Lifetime Value of newly acquired customers also need to be considered when judging the full performance of a campaign. Success or failure? It’s all in how you look at it.

This week's blog is contributed by Trent Salazar, Data Scientist, Oracle Data Cloud.

Need data-related answers for your next marketing campaign? Contact thedatahotline@oracle.com today.

A pinch of single-purchase discounts, a cup of 1:1 targeting, and stir in some relevant rewards for loyal shoppers: that’s quite a recipe. Together, these ingredients form the cornerstone of the Oracle Data Cloud Shopper Intelligence team’s Targeted Shopper Program. The Targeted Shopper program is a direct mail or email program that rewards our clients’ customers with offers that are unique to them based on their purchase behavior. These rewards drive an increase in both shopping trips and shopping spend in stores.

As personalization and impactful messaging continue to become more important for marketers, retailers should constantly ask themselves, “Where is personalized messaging most meaningful to my shoppers, and how can I get the recipe?”

It’s good to keep in mind that not all advertising, web content, and offers need to be personalized. You do have to use generalized messaging to pique the interest of shoppers as you innovate with your products. But in the right areas, personalization can be the differentiator between you and your competitors. We partner closely with our retailer clients to dig into their shopper trends to help them determine where those areas exist. Let’s take a look at an example where personalization was the recipe for success.

Gathering the Ingredients
In 2015, tasked with a 3-month development time frame, we assembled a cross-functional team to scope out and build a personalized recipes solution for one of our partners. We created a method to ingest recipes from multiple sources as well as an algorithm to rank key ingredients, map differentiating ingredients to our proprietary Essence (lifestyle / lifestage) segments, and deliver 1:1 targeted recipes for each household.

Mix Well
We ran live test targeting on a subset of the retailer’s Targeted Shopper Program audience over the course of three mailer events. This allowed us to assess the process and the results so that we could tweak the recipe program based on ingredient mapping, Essence profiles, and seasonality.

Taste Test
At the end of the three mailer events, we presented the process to our client and used their executives’ shopping behavior to test for relevancy. All of the execs expressed that the recipes that we targeted to them were recipes they would use. The client opted to go live to their entire Targeted Shopper Program audience and indicated that the recipes piece of their Targeted Shopper Program is a key component of their personalization strategy.

This blog post was contributed by Karen Shaak, Manager, Client Solutions, Oracle Data Cloud.

Are you ready to implement a personalized recipes program? Are you looking to partner to determine your personalization path? Contact The Data Hotline at thedatahotline@oracle.com, and access answers that will drive results.

Welcome to the first edition of The Data Brew! This weekly series highlights the latest in data-driven news and updates for marketers, all in one place.

Mobile Macchiato

Snapchat is reportedly moving into ad tech
For the first time, Snapchat is preparing to move into ad tech, according to a report from Digiday's Garrett Sloane. The photo and video messaging platform is currently in discussion with ad tech companies and advertising agencies about opening up an API (application programming interface. This move would see the company significantly ramp up its ad sales business. Read more from Business Insider.

Social Espresso Shot

Twitter CEO Winks at Change to 140-Character Limit

On Tuesday Re/code reported that Twitter is considering expanding the number of characters people can include in a tweet from 140 to potentially 10,000. This will change the long-standing current limit users are accustomed to. Read more from AdAge.

Data Dark Roast

4 Data-Driven Marketing Takeaways From Kellogg Co.
Kellogg’s sophisticated marketing efforts have long relied on data, but segmentation generally was based on factors such as demographics and age. For the past year Kellogg has been testing Oracle Datalogix purchasing-behavior data at the same time it’s pushing deeper into social and mobile digital advertising. Read more from Forbes.

Educated Guesses on Data-Driven Marketing in 2016

Oracle VP, Cory Treffeletti gives us educated guesses rather thank predictions on what will happen in the data-driven marketing space in 2016. Spoiler alert: things will look like more of the same, but better.

Oracle to Acquire AddThis

Oracle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire AddThis, a leading provider of publisher personalization, audience insight and activation tools that powers 15 million websites and enables unmatched audience segment quality, scale and insight.

Media Mocha

Warner Brothers Tests The Waters With Programmatic Video

Warner Brothers is moving further into programmatic video with Tremor Video’s supply-side platform to set brand controls around certain properties. This will also help monetize more mobile video inventory. Read more from AdExchanger.

Netflix Expands Into 130 New Countries

Last Wednesday, Netflix launched its video streaming services in 130 additional countries. The decision was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). CEO Reed Hastings gave a keynote last week to a full house at the Venetian, who were "witnessing the birth of a global TV network." Read more from AdAge.

Stay up to date on all things data! Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to stay in the loop.

Need data-related answers for your next marketing campaign? Contact thedatahotline@oracle.com today.

By now, you may know the answers to the following questions, such as, where’s Luke? Why is Leia crying? Did Chewie really just blow up something? We here at the Oracle Data Cloud are so happy with the new Star Wars movie. Though, what if it hadn’t lived up to its expectations? What if in the end, it had been a terrible film?

We’ve seen similar stories when measuring digital advertising campaigns’ impact on offline sales. While most campaigns regardless of digital media publisher are effective at driving incremental offline dollars efficiently, some simply under perform in the advertiser’s eyes.

Why do they under perform?

At times, these campaigns drive no incremental sales, and other times they generate incremental dollars though with a low Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). However in essentially all of these cases, there are positive data-driven takeaways lurking underneath the headlines that are both noteworthy and will help hone and improve future campaigns (as opposed to an advertiser relying solely on its agency’s Jedi mind tricks to deliver better results).

Here are some examples that we’ve seen of strong-performing campaign elements providing great learnings to advertisers despite the campaign underachieving overall:

Audience:
We’ve explained the importance of a digital campaign’s audience selection in previous blog posts. We’ve measured several campaigns targeting both “own-brand” buyers and competitive brand buyers where the latter delivered incremental sales while the former did not. This simply means that for these particular campaigns, competitive brand buyers performed well. This could be category-dependent. For instance, it’s difficult to have buyers of your own dog food brand buy more of your brand (unless they adopt another dog), while it may be easier to entice other brands’ buyers to try your brand. Own-brand buyers could perform just as well in other campaigns (maybe with a different message, a creative promoting a different brand, etc.).

Impression Frequency:
Especially among “open web” digital publishers (vs. “closed” ecosystems) we’ve witnessed many campaigns with sub-optimal impression frequency. In these cases, many HHs see just one impression over a 12-week campaign (underdelivery) while others may see hundreds (overdelivery). Among these campaigns, we have at times observed a “sweet spot” of impression delivery (typically hovering around two impressions per household per week). A finding like this can help an agency or platform better manage their impression frequency so more HHs are delivered frequency in that “sweet spot.”

Video vs. Display:
Obviously digital Video ad spend is growing rapidly compared to that of Display. As a result, we measure many campaigns that include both Video & Display, with marketers wanting to compare the two. If video represents a small portion of the campaign budget yet drives incremental sales while Display does not, this could result in an overall poor-performing campaign. The takeaway, though, is the strength of Video – and this leads to questions such as, “What is ideal video duration for an ad?” “Is there a sales effect after just a one second view?” Or, “Does is take a longer view time (10+ seconds) to drive offline sales?” Answers we provide to these questions help advertisers further optimize their future budget allocation of Video vs. Display.

Traditional demos:
What if older HHs were highly responsive to media while younger HHs were unaffected? While we are convinced of the strength of purchase-based targeting, some campaigns may need traditional demo targeting in order to achieve scale. In these cases, knowing that impressions served to older households drove offline sales helps considerably, and a marketer can utilize this when planning for future campaigns (possibly leveraging Oracle’s “Validated Demographics”).

Most marketers would agree (to heavily borrow a quote from a famous and powerful Sith Lord), that the power of The Force is insignificant compared to a digital media campaign’s ability to drive offline sales. Measuring the elements of a campaign that achieve this can help marketers improve their campaigns’ effectiveness and efficiency, no Jedi needed.

This week’s post is contributed by Dave Mundo, Head of Client Analytics, Oracle Data Cloud.

This week's blog post is contributed by Cory Treffiletti, VP Marketing, Oracle Data Cloud.

It’s that time of year again. Time for friends, family and forecasting! It’s the time of year when people try to anticipate what will happen in the coming year based on what they’ve seen in recent months. For me, I don’t like to call these “predictions” as much as “educated guesses”, so here are my “educated guesses” for what I think will happen in the space of data-driven marketing in 2016.

CPM’S FOR DATA WILL DRIVE MEDIA

There are two ways to look at how people will buy data in 2016. On one side, the CPM’s for data are increasing while CPM’s for basic digital display are decreasing so at some point its possible the data may actually be more valuable than the media. This feels a little extreme. What’s more likely is the industry will come to realize that media without data has little to no value and that data will drive the value in online media, meaning any potential increases in publisher revenue growth will come as a result of data-infused media. There are no current benchmarks in place to reference, but there are still lots of advertisers doing performance-based campaigns with no data associated. The “spray and pray” model of untargeted advertising still exists but publishers cannot live on that model of monetization.

As display advertising becomes more data-driven, or at the least targeted using data, CPM’s will rise and they will sell more of the valuable, “premium” media. This translates to fewer and fewer untargeted, performance based buys and an increase in the share of data-driven impressions. If this trend continues, advertisers may be dictating that close to 100% of their campaigns need be data-driven or data-infused. That means the true value of the impression will lie in the data as much, if not more than, simply the delivery on a page. Data targeting + context is extremely valuable, but data targeting by itself can create a highly effective campaign. Just look at the success of retargeting as an example; Retargeting exists in non-contextually relevant environments and this signals the direction of the industry, especially as the tactic crosses over into video and non-linear TV.

CONSOLIDATION IN THE INDUSTRY MAY SLOW DOWN

Not everyone agrees with me on this, but I think the volume of consolidation will slow down in ad and marketing tech. This is going to be an interesting year driven by an election cycle, and elections bring uncertainty. I think uncertainty breeds mistrust and only the top 20-25% of the industry is going to be targeted for M&A, leaving the bottom 75-80% either stuck in a situation of “thrive” or “barely survive”. Political spending will be all over the place and if publishers are able to tap into that stream or the Summer Olympics spend, they will thrive. If they cannot, they will barely survive, if survive at all.

The fragmentation and clutter around spending in our industry has to simplify and an election year is exactly the right year for this to happen. My opinion seems to be supported by the uncertainty around Yahoo right now as Yahoo is typically one of the leading M&A drivers, but with their future in doubt a strong player could be taken off the table in 2016.

THINGS IN 2016 WILL FEEL LIKE MORE OF THE SAME, BUT BETTER

This can be seen as a cop-out in terms of an educated guess, but I’ve now worked through many election cycles in the Internet age and election years almost always create a slowdown in disruption. Things don’t change in an election year – they change the year AFTER the elections. Election cycles are about promises and debates. There are promises made and predictions prognosticated, but things rarely change until the new leaders are in place and those promises are delivered upon. In a year such as this, it’s foolish to predict massive change.

For our industry that means data will continue to become more important. Marketers will continue to become more accountable. Technology will play a greater role in marketing. Dollars will continue to shift from TV to digital, and agencies will continue to evolve around digital strategy and digital engagement. The same buzzwords will be thrown around and the same arguments around ad blocking will be discussed. The status quo will allow us to continue to get better at what we do in an iterative fashion, and enable us to become better, tighter, stronger and more effective partners for marketers. I for one see this as a fantastic opportunity. Don’t you?

Oracle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire AddThis, a leading provider of publisher personalization, audience insight and activation tools that powers 15 million websites and enables unmatched audience segment quality, scale and insight.

Oracle Data Cloud is the fastest growing global Data as a Service (DaaS) business, operating the most accurate data ID Graph™ to enable understanding of consumer behavior across all media channels. Oracle Data Cloud ingests third-party data, extracts value, and activates the data to drive insights and harness this knowledge for targeting, personalization and measurement. With the addition of AddThis, Oracle Data Cloud’s offering is expected to deliver unprecedented levels of audience insight, measurement and reach.

Learn more about at www.oracle.com/addthis.

At an industry conference this year, I was surprised to hear a presenter describe millennials with broad generalizations about our preferences and behaviors with a related marketing plan ensured to captivate our category.

As a millennial, I disagreed with many of the points the presenter made - behavioral assumptions on 1 demographic attribute: customers age 20-34. According to him we all love extreme sports and have very short attention spans.

Wait, what was I saying?

If I could describe myself to another marketer, I would say, “technology fanatic,” a “hard-working team player,” “world traveller” and “obsessed with British TV.” I would say that I own a smart phone, a tablet and a laptop, and use all three daily. That I never go anywhere without Google Maps, and that I consider technology and social media as an intrinsic part of my life in a way that no other generation has experienced.

That being said, my experience as a millennial varies from someone else aged 20-34 – considering those at the low end of the Millennials range are just starting college, and those at the high end of the range may be married with children. Yes, millennials are all on Facebook and use a smart phone. But so are other generations, from Gen Z to Baby Boomers. Didn’t you hear? Technology rocks and everyone apparently loves Candy Crush!

There are certainly millennials out there who have short attention spans and do nothing but snowboard and base jump in their off-hours (you’re certain to find a few), but those aren’t age-exclusive traits. Ultimately, not only are sweeping generalizations about the nation’s largest living population today based solely on age not helpful to marketers, they can also be downright misleading when it comes to launching a successful campaign.
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Instead, when used as a jumping off point for marketers, there is some credibility to marketing towards a generation. Experiencing the same social changes, news and technology upgrades while molding young minds will no doubt result in a different way of looking at the world as an adult. But after reading and listening to theories in the last few years that are based solely on age, I’m unsure as to why anyone would believe that marketing to such a broad group of people on only one data point would be effective. Especially now that we have access to data showing detailed levels of targeting that just can’t be achieved by considering age alone. As Business News Daily states in a recent article, “Of course millennials exist — just not in one neat, unified demographic.”

Age is only one piece of the puzzle. Behavioral targeting using data takes a much deeper dive into millennials’ passions, values and motivations than age alone. Data shows millennials in a whole new light: as people, interested in a myriad of hobbies, with varied shopping habits and purchase histories. Data-driven advertising is most effective when multiple data types are combined to reach your target audience: demographic, behavioral and purchase based.

For example, our recent Audience Targeting Primer values audience segmentation as the process of dividing a target audience by defined attributes such as demographics (to start), but then goes on to distinguish the importance of going deeper into intent, interests, geography, past purchases, and other behaviors that indicate a likelihood for customer conversion.

Perhaps the tide is already turning. Ad Age recently published an article stating that in 2016, marketing and communications professionals will stop targeting millennials as one demographic and focus on reaching the younger consumers based on their passions, according to a study released by Hotwire PR.

And this fall, The Boston Globe proclaimed, “Move over, millennials. Gen Z is new target audience.” The Gen Zers, according to The Boston Globe, are loosely defined as individuals 20 and younger who are starting to spend their own money and are developing habits that could influence their buying through adulthood – not to mention that $44 billion in purchasing power.

Generation Z, huh? I hear they all love bungee jumping!

This blog post was contributed by Maren Williams, Content Marketing Specialist, Oracle Data Cloud.

Data-driven marketing is often a mix of art and science. So this fall, as I loaded my calendar with Advertising Week XII sessions, I made sure to register for a session presented by The ARF “How Advertising Works: Building Brands in the Brain.” The session explored mixing the art of advertising with neuroscience techniques to measure physical and emotional responses in the brain then using those learnings to steer marketing strategy.

As a data-driven marketer, my own brain was firing on all cylinders, with all of the technology that now exists to deliver messaging to the consumer (think mobile beacons, wearables, connected TV), could neuroscience data eventually be added to the mix of data we use to reach shoppers? Brain powered audience targeting?

Neuroscience and media exposure

Maybe I’m late to the party, but I was for the most part unaware of neuromarketing techniques, which consist of some pretty heavy scientific research on human subjects as they are exposed to TV commercials:

· Biometrics – measuring eye tracking, skin and muscle responses to stimuli (in this case its ads)

· EEG (electroencephalography)/SST (steady-state topography) – measuring electrical brain activity.

· fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) - uses MRI imaging technology to brain activity by mapping changes in blood flow.

Test results give marketers data on how subjects react to messaging content, text and image placement and length of media exposure.

The endgame

The AMA, ARF and Journal of Consumer Psychology as well as a handful of for profit research firms have all released data, studies and opinions about these techniques and their actual use for marketers. NY Magazine just published this extensive exploration.

My initial enthusiasm at the prospect of using neuro data for audience targeting was short-lived. The general consensus among experts is that this data, while has potential for multiple uses, has a long way to go to be reliable. Its primary use case? Influencing creative.

This blog post was contributed by Tara DeZao, Sr. Content Manager, Oracle Data Cloud.

During the holidays, many families look forward to eating delicious meals, giving gifts to one another, and enjoying the cheerfulness of the season.

But for some families, living in poverty makes the holidays difficult to endure.

Luckily, organizations like A Precious Child are here to help children in need all year round. Since their founding in 2008, A Precious Child, Inc. has supported kids in Colorado by providing them with basic essentials. We spoke with Andy Conigliaro, Senior Director, Oracle Data Cloud Finance and Operations on why Oracle Data Cloud partners with A Precious Child each year to help those who need it most.

Maren Williams: As a member of the Board of Directors for A Precious Child, can you describe the organization’s mission and goals and how you got involved?

Andy Conigliaro: A Precious Child is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making a positive impact in the lives of children and families in need throughout Colorado by improving their quality of life. I first heard about A Precious Child through a Datalogix drive about three years ago. I had been looking to get involved with a non-profit focused on causes I’m passionate about for a long time, so when I met with the founder of the organization and learned more about what they do for families in the community, I knew this was the right fit.

Maren Williams: Can you tell us more about how A Precious Child helps the community and how they impact Colorado families?

Andy Conigliaro: A Precious Child helps upwards of 30,000 children and their families a year. The organization’s eight different programs help kids in a proactive way that really sets them up for success later in life. One the eight programs is called “Precious Essentials,” where a store is set up for those in need to go shopping for essential items with the help of volunteer “personal shoppers.” Clients are treated with dignity and are given a solution to some of their most basic needs. Another program, “Fill A Backpack,” allows children to attend school with all the supplies they need, so that they can have the same advantages as other children.

Maren Williams: Can you describe how Oracle Data Cloud supported A Precious Child this holiday season?

Andy Conigliaro: Oracle Data Cloud participated in the “Precious Gift” gift drive this holiday season. We were given 100 gift tags from A Precious Child, each complete with an individual child’s name and their holiday wish list printed for employees to fulfill. It was great to see our competitive spirit come out as we challenged the upper and lower floors of the office to get the most gift tags fulfilled. Once we blew through the first 100 gift tags, we asked for 50 more. One of the gift tags had a big-ticket item listed, and one of our departments decided to pool their funds to deliver that gift for the child. It was so great to see everyone in the office coming together to support such a worthy cause.

Maren Williams: And in the end, we fulfilled all of our gift tags!

Andy Conigliaro: That’s right! We were able to get all 150 gift tags filled, which means 150 children in need will have wonderful holiday gifts this year. That’s a great feeling for all of us. Whenever I visit A Precious Child and speak with their staff and leadership, they are always so incredibly appreciative of Oracle Data Cloud and our involvement year after year.

A Precious Child really is a great organization to work with. With over 260 agencies within Colorado partnering with A Precious Child, the organization is able to have a huge impact on the broader community. I believe A Precious Child and Oracle Data Cloud have a lot in common – we are both growing organizations with highly aspirational goals that we regularly achieve beyond what seems achievable. It’s fantastic that we are able to partner year after year, and I look forward to many more years to come!

Learn more about A Precious Child a their website, apreciouschild.org.

Read about how Oracle Data Cloud gives back to a local Golden Retriever Rescue on our blog (with video!).

The winter holidays are here, and with them come lists of all kinds: wish lists, shopping lists – well, the list goes on! In the spirit of the holiday season, we made our own holiday list to celebrate the Oracle Data Cloud blog in the year 2015. Here are the top 10 most-read blogs of the year, as shown by you, our data-driven readers!

1. Cyber Monday and Black Friday Shoppers

This was certainly one of the most read blogs this year – with holiday sales at top of mind for marketers, our infographic detailing cyber monday and black friday shoppers was shared, reviewed and clicked many times over.

2. Interview with Patrick Dolan, COO of the IAB

Our interview with Patrick Dolan was a hit with blog readers this year! Dolan shared his insights from the IAB on 2016 marketing trends, as well as discussing his take on ad-blocking – a hot topic for marketers.

3. Mother’s Day Gift Buyers

Did you know that Mother’s Day is among the top consumer shopping holidays, just behind the winter holiday season and the back to school shopping season? Our infographic on Mother’s Day Gift Buyers was especially helpful for marketers this year.

4. Data Will De-commoditize TV Advertising

This re-post from Oracle Data Cloud's Magazine "Data-Driven: Expert Insights on Driving Smarter Business Action,” by Dave Morgan, CEO, Simulmedia, was well received by our blog readers in 2015! If you missed reading this post, be sure to check it out at the link above.

5. The Graph, Past, Present and Future

Oracle Vice President of Product Management EMEA and CX, Michel Van Woudenberg contributed this guest post, which gave an overview of data graphs, and insight into the Oracle ID Graph. The process of connecting consumer identities is vital to ensure the right person receives the right message. If you missed this blog post this year, be sure to read all about it now!

6. Audience Targeting Strategies and Success Stories in 5 minutes or less

Our Oracle Data Cloud 5 Minute Audience Targeting Primer helped marketers learn more about audience targeting strategies this year. Blog readers were able to see what other organizations have achieved using data in their ad campaigns, resulting in better results, better engagement, and better ROI. You can’t get much better than that!

7. Tales from the Oracle Data Cloud Summit: PlaceIQ’s Duncan McCall on Real World Attribution

This interview series with Oracle Content Marketer Jacqueline McDonough featured discussion with industry leaders at the 2015 Oracle Data Cloud Summit. We had the opportunity to sit down with CEO and Co-Founder of PlaceIQ, Duncan McCall to get the scoop on PlaceIQ’s Place Visit Rate (PVR) product and more.

8. Data Gives Automakers More Shots on Goal

What do hockey, automakers and marketing have in common? This guest blog, contributed by Mike Schumacher, Senior Director: Data Science, Oracle Data Cloud, connected the dots this year to help pinpoint audience targeting.

9. How Content Data Inputs and Programmatic Technology are Changing Account Based Marketing

Ben Barenholtz, Director of Marketing and Communications, DWA, alongside DataXu and Madison Logic Data were featured in this blog post, which was read by many of our blog users, which helped shed some light on the evolving account-based marketing industry.

10. Four Ways Personalization Drives Conversion in Retail Marketing

You might know that leveraging 3rd party data allows the Retailer to understand more about the wallets and behaviors of their customers. This blog post explains how marketers can use these insights to deliver targeted, highly relevant messages to increase conversion.

Check back in early January for a list of 2016 data-driven marketing predictions from Cory Treffiletti, VP Marketing, Oracle Data Cloud!

Leading organizations are now using data to revolutionize the customer experience. But what does success look like?

Oracle Data Cloud teamed up with research firm IDC to examine 6 successful companies that use data to:

- Optimize and inform marketing campaign strategy based on measurable results

- Influence consumer purchase behavior using social data

- Drive connections between physical and digital attributes

- Eliminate waste by connecting to the right customer with the right message at the right time

Learn right now how Oracle Data Cloud delivered measurable, impactful business results for Heineken, Kellogg, IRI, PlaceIQ, Intel and Equifax. Then consider what data can do for you.

Access and download these six case studies now to gain insights into your marketing future with data!

The room was packed for the latest Boulder/Denver Big Data Meetup group event last week, “Case Study: Machine Learning at Scale using Spark and Hive.” Alex Sadovsky, Director, Data Science, Oracle Data Cloud joined Ashish Thusoo Co-Founder & CEO, Qubole, to present a real-world case study for implementing machine learning techniques at scale using these two technologies. Watch a video of the event at our Oracle Data Cloud YouTube Channel!

If you’re not familiar with Data Science, Apache Hive is a data warehouse infrastructure built on top of Hadoop for providing data summarization, query, and analysis, while Apache Spark is an open source cluster computing framework.

After some initial networking, the event kicked off with Ashish Thusoo’s presentation on why Big Data belongs in the cloud, and focusing on new ways in which enterprises consume software applications and infrastructure. With a focus on agility and flexibility, the cloud provides companies a mechanism to keep up with change and stay competitive in today’s world of fast moving technology, Thusoo explained.

Next, Alex Sadovsky began his presentation providing an overview of how he and his team utilize Spark and Hive to provide cutting edge machine learning solutions on top of massive amounts of ever growing big data sources. Sadovsky also explained how he utilizes cloud services to create scalable, low maintenance, resource optimized clusters capable of handling dynamic data science workloads.

Sadovsky also mentioned in his presentation that his team is currently expanding and hiring new data scientists. This Meetup group event comes soon after a recent HackerX event, hosted by Oracle Data Cloud, bolstering plans to hire more than 50 engineers in the next 6 months.

Oracle Data Cloud was happy to provide a venue for the event, and welcome the local data community. Keep up to date on all the latest data-driven events by following Oracle Data Cloud on Twitter and liking us on Facebook!

Today's post is an interview with Patrick Dolan, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the IAB. Dolan has been involved with the digital advertising and media industry for the better part of two decades. 

Dolan pioneered a number of digital advertising techniques while in senior roles at DoubleClick, now owned by Google. While Director of Business Operations at DoubleClick, he was on the team that developed interest based advertising, re-targeting and other data related advertising products.

Prior to the IAB, Dolan served as the Executive Director of The Locomotion Cable Channel, a joint venture between Hearst and Corus Entertainment. In addition, Dolan served as the director of finance for George Soros’ network of philanthropic entities, The Open Society Institute, in Europe. Based in Budapest, he managed a budget of over $500 million disbursed in over 20 countries in Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Dolan received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia and his MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University. As we head into 2016, we asked Mr. Dolan to share his insights from the IAB:

Oracle: What do you see as being top of mind for marketers heading into 2016?  

Dolan:  Automation will continue to be top of mind for marketers as data and programmatic buying become increasingly important to communicating brand messages digitally. The rapid growth in the consumption of video, especially on mobile devices, is making these audiences more and more meaningful to marketers. In 2016, the industry will continue to confront and address issues that we already are facing. So, IAB in 2016 will redouble its efforts to minimize fraud and reduce the effect of ad blockers in the ecosystem. The industry has made good progress addressing these problems, and IAB will continue working to address these problems with our industry partners, the ANA and the 4A’s. As just one example of something we’ve done together this year, the IAB joined with the ANA and the 4A’s to promote a trustworthy supply chain by launching the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), whose goal is to establish a trusted digital marketplace for publishers, marketers, and agencies. 

Oracle: What are some key takeaways from the 2015 IAB MIXX Conference?

Dolan: The IAB MIXX Conference is a celebration of digital as an effective marketing medium. We want marketers to think of digital advertising not just as the traditional banner ads, but as much more. IAB MIXX showcased what is working in digital marketing, the latest trends and how the industry is evolving. The IAB wants to help brands and agencies understand the true flexibility of the medium and how things like data are continuing to move the needle. We are convinced that there is great value in reminding marketers that digital is the best way for communicating their messages to their consumers—since their consumers are spending so much of their media consumption on digital devices.

Oracle: What can we expect to see from the IAB in the near future?

Dolan: Recently, the IAB Data Council released a new study with the Winterberry Group entitled, “Data as a Competitive Advantage.” This report examines how marketing automation and data usage are becoming increasingly important. More and more organizations are integrating marketing and communications as part of the enterprise technology stack. In order to unlock their data’s potential and use it as a competitive advantage, organizations will need to leverage it across enterprise platforms from CRM, to commerce, to communications. Messaging can be optimized by consumer preferences, and data can influence how the message looks and all of the relevant data points – weather, location, browsing, shopping and social data now all tie into meaningful communication with the consumer. This study shows what sophisticated users of data and technology are doing to extract meaning from first- and third-party data. Read and download the white paper today!

Retail marketers relentlessly focus on customer loyalty, striving to understand every detail about their behavior, while stumbling through the complexity of the digital ecosystem to get their message in front of them.

With the customer at the center, there are still critical concepts that brands overlook:a

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• We all like to think that our customer loyalty bleeds only the color of our brand. In reality, customers are actively purchasing across the ecosystem – with your competitors, and with other brands.
• Understanding purchase behavior beyond what a customer spends with you is not only important, but critical to building a stronger customer file and increasing response on your campaigns.

2. She doesn’t realize the media world is complex

• Customers don’t tend to think about the complexity of reaching them across all of their online identities, from social accounts to work email and purchase history. In fact, it may never have crossed a customer’s mind at all as they sign on to their various accounts. But the challenge of connecting multiple data points is something marketers think about every single day.
• Navigate the complexity on a customer’s behalf by aligning partnerships that connect online identity across multiple channels. This ensures your brand reaches her in a manner that’s deliberate, cost effective and helps drive response.
  

3. There are (a lot) more prospective customers just like her

• Retailers often think that what they are currently doing is enough or that there isn’t a scalable audience beyond their current effort across catalog, search, and retargeting.
• There is a data-driven world of opportunity beyond these tried and true strategies. Test new providers and new audiences across behavioral, purchase and 2nd party data to expand reach. Coordinate audiences, set goals, gain understanding and then optimize.
  

Stop seeing the customer for who you want them to be and start seeing them for who they really are – demonstrated by their actual purchase behavior. Using past purchase behavior delivers much more accurate and valuable insights. It’s time to harness the power of data instead of focusing on loyalty when making marketing decisions, and forget what you thought you knew about your customer.

This week’s blog post was contributed by Jenni Burton, Senior Digital Consultant, Retail, Oracle Data Cloud.