Let's Play Pretend
- Bob Hoffman
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Let’s pretend for a minute that marketers know what they're doing.
And let’s also pretend that ‘precision targeting’ in media is a really good idea.
And let’s also pretend that the marketers who are soending their company’s money on 'precision targeted' programmatic advertising are awesome.
Let’s see what these geniuses are getting for the extra money (sometimes 2 to 3 times the cost of 'non-precision' targeting) they’re paying for all this ‘precision.’
Adlook, a digital media company, recently did a study. They took specific target segments from popular data providers, and asked people within those segments about themselves. Then they compared what the data said about these people to what the people themselves said.
Here’s a summary of the highlights:
- 47% of the people who the data said were women, were men
- 50% of the people who the data said were men, were women
- 67% of the people that the data said were parents said they had no children
- 52% of the people who were supposed to be 18-34 said they were over 35
- 60% of the people who were supposed to be over 45 said they were under 45
- 76% of the people who the data said were married said they weren’t
If my dog Roscoe flipped a coin he would be way more accurate than this 'precision data' horseshit. In the understatement of the year, Adlook said, “This suggests that socio-demographics targeting may not provide added value.” No shit.
What Does The Above Study Prove?
Who the hell knows? On the surface it is incredibly damning (and to me, pretty damn funny.) Probably it is correct and the targeting data we pay for is way worse than useless.
But maybe the study isn’t reliable. After all, it was done online. And if there’s one thing we know about data gathered online it is that it is very wise to assume it’s complete bullshit. In other words, the data harvested from this study may be nonsense, just like the data it reported on.
Nonetheless here are some non-data-driven points to consider about media targeting: - - You are not as smart as you think you are. You think you know where your customers are going to come from, but you don’t. Customers very often come from unexpected places. - The whole idea of precision targeting is highly suspect. The most useful effect of advertising is to reach as many people as you can afford to reach. The concept of “precision targeted advertising” is a contrivance dreamed up by the online advertising industry to make cheap, tiny-reach, no-impact advertising sound providential.
⁃ Precision targeting is anything but. Most of the data you are paying extravagantly for is alarmingly unreliable. And the reports you are getting are substantially bullshit.
