Here We Grow Again: Audience Modeling for Your Expanding Audience

Businesses have huge amounts of customers’ demographic and behavioral data at their disposal, and this data spans numerous dimensions per person. A common use for this data is to develop marketing and sales strategies through audience modeling. 

While Audience Modeling usually involves focusing on two or three important characteristics of each person, wouldn’t it be better to use all available customer data?

Audience Modeling is About More Than Numbers -- It’s About Customers

Audience Modeling is the gold standard of lead gen, but it is perceived as traditionally high-cost, long-lead time; changes in data protection laws mean you might have been looking for alternatives. The biggest innovation in Audience Modeling today might change your mind – it’s the application of artificial intelligence to data modeling. 

AI can leverage all available data to quickly develop unique and actionable audiences. By using AI to streamline the modeling process, you have access to look-alike audiences quickly – at a reasonable price. In addition, you have a tool that helps you leverage first-party data in a new way. What used to take weeks can now be done in minutes, saving you time, money, and headaches.

Audience modeling uses data to identify groups of similar customers to predict their behavior. Behind this term is, on the one hand, customer generation, but also the all-important task of customer retention. Customer retention? Sure! Content Marketing, for example, is given to existing customers but is intended to attract potential customers.

Customer retention not only secures revenue, but it also saves money by reducing CACs. Satisfied customers serve to increase customer profitability, extend the duration of customer relationships, and improve customer recovery success.

“Tell your existing customers how you are serving them in new ways. Reach out to potential customers by offering new products or services that solve a new problem.” Harvard Business Review

How Data Protection Impacts Audience Modeling

Look-alike modeling has been a vital part of our work for many years, enabling brands to grow their audiences by bringing together high performers and using data to target others like them. 

As we wrote in 2021, data management platforms (DMPs), third-party cookies, and related data are becoming obsolete. The self-regulation by tech providers and laws like CCPA and GDPR mean first-party data will play a larger and more important role in our modeling. 

Discarding third-party cookie data overlays results in a smaller overall audience size because there are fewer associated identifiers to connect to. However, look-alike modeling can help companies leverage their first-party data to create powerful, large-scale segments for marketing and advertising purposes.

“Google has begun developing solutions that deliver the same functionality as third-party cookies, but with more privacy. There are many concepts in place such as Trust Tokens, First Party Sets, and Conversion Measurement. Behind these concepts is the understanding that a website visitor gives permission, similar to the way we already accept a cookie.” Andrews Wharton

Is Your Audience Still the One You Know and Love?

Been there, done that. Isn’t your audience already yours? Sure, but every customer is in a relationship with you -- and as we all know, no relationship lasts forever. Are you and your customers still an item? Are you both where you want to be?

Every business starts with a target audience in mind. As time goes by you may lose sight of why your customers are with you. Don’t take their loyalty for granted. Are your top customers still regular buyers?

As your business grows, your customers may also not be those you had originally targeted. Priorities change -- those of customers and your own priorities and business goals. You may have both discovered something new -- a niche that wasn’t there when you first met. 

So the question is are your needs and theirs still aligned, or is it better to focus on a new audience? This is where Audience Modeling comes to play; it scales as your business grows.

“You've got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology," Steve Jobs notably stated. "You cannot start with the technology and try to figure out where you are going to sell it." HubSpot

Case in Point: Keep Your Finger on the Pulse of Your Customers

Scenario: 

You need to reach new customers with your latest offer. Direct mail is an effective part of your marketing success, but surprise – conversion rates have been dropping.

Solution: 

You’ve identified high-value customers to use as a seed file for a new look-alike model. A look-alike model provides you with an audience of potential new customers that look just like your existing customers. 

Problem:

Once we’ve built our core personas, we’ll likely be referencing them for years to come. The problem is that we’re referencing information long after it's lost its relevance – or accuracy. 

Revisit personas on a regular basis. Update them to make sure they remain in alignment with your current business goals and content marketing strategy, as well as reflect any new opportunities that may have emerged.

Ongoing audience intelligence research helps you ensure you're on track with your marketing while keeping the needs of your audience at the heart of your strategy.

“If you have not updated your personas in 5 or more years, chances are they are performing for your products about as well as a dull butter knife cutting steak. It’s time to take a good hard look at the validity of your existing personas ...” Nielsen Norman Group

Know Who to Engage and How to Engage Them 

AWI’s Customer Acquisition Modeling Platform (CAMP) creates custom models to meet your business objectives (response, pay and stay, LTV). Rank your current customers or rented lists based on their relative performance probability and increase your success rate with improved targeting efficiency.

​​Andrews Wharton is known for sourcing data across the entire marketplace and curating it for your unique needs. We understand the importance of accurate, verified, and compliant data. We literally built a company on it! You can Be Certain, we know how fundamental data is to the future of your business.