By Kelly Whelan, Marketing Product Manager
Media agencies across the globe are looking to data management platforms (DMPs) to help meet client demand for data-driven performance improvements. With DMP adoption rate amongst agencies at 79% worldwide, how are top performers using this technology differently, and what does it mean for their clients?
A new report released by ExchangeWire and Lotame sought to answer these questions. They found that although DMPs are a common part of most agencies’ marketing stacks, the majority of DMP use is narrow, focusing predominantly on data unification, audience targeting, and analytics. This exclusive focus means less sophisticated agencies are often not delivering on the key benefits of the DMP at the expense of their clients.
On the other hand, they noted that for today’s top agencies, the results are clear: taking advantage of the full capabilities of a DMP will show demonstrable performance benefits while improving clients’ ROI from ad spend.
The report cites several subject matter experts, including 3Q’s own VP of Decision Sciences, Feliks Malts. The 3Q Decision Sciences team is known for pushing the boundaries of the average use case for DMPs, expanding into areas such as creative and messaging optimization, which only 29% of respondents cited as a primary use. Feliks is quoted in the report saying:
“[Audience insights from our DMP] allow us to leverage our data to ensure that we're targeting the right people, on the right channels, with the right frequency and messaging at the right time in their journey.”
Another area in which the 3Q Decision Sciences team has found repeated success with DMPs is offline data onboarding. Interestingly enough, offline data onboarding is cited as the biggest opportunity for agencies by survey respondents, but only 19% indicated it as a primary use case. Feliks feels there is a significant and underutilized benefit of DMPs when it comes to activating non-digital channels, as they offer:
“The ability to understand who our clients' customers are in the digital space. This gives us the capacity to inform targeting, which can apply to offline channels like direct mail, catalog, and even email, to help reduce costs and deliver [success] more efficiently. It can also help drive consistency in messaging across online and offline [channels], since a lot of the data attributes that we have available in a DMP are also accessible in customer data appends.”
Overall, the conclusion to be drawn from the findings in this report are best summed up in its final paragraph:
"The agencies who will rise to the top will be those offering clients advanced data strategies, such as content & experience personalization, cross-device attribution, sequential messaging, and creative & messaging optimization. If brands are to be able to continue to build out their data strategies, agencies must begin to leverage the DMP's more sophisticated use cases."
It’s overwhelmingly clear that things will continue to heat up in the DMP space. Is your agency keeping up? Contact us to find out how we can help take your DMP to the next level.
