Audience Buying

Audience buying is the catchall term for the shift from buying proxies for audiences (content, for example) to directly buying audience segments based on data collected about them. This is an update to behavioral targeting, made possible by deep pools of consumer data now available and the advent of real-time bidding on ad exchanges and other media networks.

What is audience-based buying?

With audience-based buying, advertisers purchase their specific audience directly, using data to inform their decision-making. Addressability, another form of audience-based buying, is the most meaningful application of digital capabilities to television content.

How is the audience buying works?

Audience buying often works through a data-management platform to pull audience data from multiple sources as well as manage ad buys through a single platform. Brands are able to track and target specific audiences across multiple platforms while managing real-time campaign results and executing ad buys.

Audience-buying allows a brand to target consumers in the market for a new car in whatever corner of digital media that they might visit, not just on the usual suspects, like automotive review websites or magazines. This might entail a marketer purchasing a “eco-friendly mom” audience segment and then receiving brand representation online, in mobile or as pre-roll video wherever the topic of the content or the orientation of the platform may be of interest to that audience.

Why buying audience data matters?

Audience buying represents a shift from a model that had formerly been the bread-and-butter of online publishers. Advertisers used to rely on publishers to present audience segments. Now, they are creating their own audience segments. See full article for more details.

Does programmatic buying imply audience-based buys only?

It might, but it should not. Audience-based buying is merely one tactical approach to programmatic buying. Other tactical approaches include site-based (i.e., publisher-based) and keyword-based (i.e., page topic/category-based) buying.