The following post was authored by Melanie Singer during her 2015 Summer Internship with LiveIntent.
First day on the job can always be nerve racking, especially when it’s in a field that you may not have as much prior knowledge, like I did when I started my internship at LiveIntent.
Imagine you open the doors to the office and immediately you’re overwhelmed by Matt Keiser discussing how “CPAs and CTRs are up” and how “LiveIntent is a real-time, people-based marketing company that leverages LiveAudience” and in your head all you hear is “dc5hg68hj8jkf9f5fdsh8jo96g4fhf5d.”
….Wait. That’s a hash. Wait. What’s a hash?
Ok, so, maybe you just hear a bunch of mumbo jumbo. A million doubts and questions swarm your mind. You put on a brave face and take a full step into the office, ready to tackle these advertising slangs and lingos.
In no time, after some proper immersion, it’s possible to speak in this foreign language fluently, but to get you started, here are the top ten digital marketing terms and definitions you need to know, as well as how they apply to LiveIntent.
So, without further ado (and as Nick always says), “Let’s get all up in it!”
1. People-based Marketing.
This is marketing to people, not pixels – which basically means targeting login IDs and not cookies. By targeting a unique hashed, login ID, you can reach a real person no matter what device they’re on, because that hashed login ID remains the same everywhere they access a people-based platform – something cookies can’t do.
For Example: If a person uses a particular email address to log-into Facebook and Twitter on a laptop, they will use the same email address on their mobile device or tablet. If that email addressed is hashed, it can be used to safely identify and match that person with a brand’s messaging without having to rely on cookies or pixels.
You can check out more on People-Based marketing by watching this video.
Hash: A hexadecimal code created by an algorithm that represents a unique, de-identified piece of data – like an email address. It’s completely anonymous and secure, yet persistent, so the hashed email data from one company can be matched to the hashed email data for another company – but neither can reverse the hashes back to the original email addresses.
For instance, LiveIntent receives a list of email hash’s from The New York Times, but will never see the actual email addresses from The New York Times.
Sample Hash: email@liveintent.com transfers to dc5hg68hj8jkf9f5fdsh8jo96g4fhf5d
You can check out more on hashing email addresses by watching this video.
Does LI use people-based marketing and hashed data? Y/N
Yes, LiveIntent is a people-based marketing platform that uses hashed data. Email is the core of the LiveIntent platform, which makes it possible to reach over 93MM people within content sent by over 750 premium brands and publisher across an array of devices accurately and efficiently, driving high performance and revenue.
2. Cookies.
Cookies are bits of HTML code that store anonymous information on online users, but are tied to browsers and devices, not people. This makes them ineffective at matching people across devices. Cookies are also short lived, as they expire after a certain period of time and because people have the ability to clear their cookies (history). Since login IDs are long-lived and cross-device, people-based marketing is generally more effective.
For Example: I’m shoe shopping on Zappos.com for sneakers Monday night on my laptop and they drop a cookie on me. Tuesday afternoon I open up my laptop and begin to stream through my Facebook, it matches my cookie, and I am served ads for sneakers from Zappos. However, it would not be able to match me with the ads if I had switched to my mobile device or tablet.
You can learn more about cookies by watching this video.
Does LI use cookies? (Y/N)
Yes. LiveIntent uses cookies as well as people-based marketing. We use them to target people based on past searches, clicks, and buys, but use a hash to do the tracking via hashed email address. It is another way for us to help marketers to reach people everywhere. While it is more consistent to use CRM data, cookies have the ability to target people immediately. LiveIntent has advertisers who place pixels on a website and then they get retargeted from our company, as a cookie is a pixel places on a website.
3. CRM Retargeting.
“CRM” stands for Customer Relationship Management.
“Retargeting” refers to the process of targeting a person with messaging that is based on that specific person’s past behavior or purchase history.
“CRM retargeting” refers to using a brand’s online and offline CRM data (like email addresses) to match specific customers to specific messaging in third party media, across all devices (laptop, mobile device, tablet), all in real-time.
For Example: Kraft has a list of customers who have signed up to receive nacho recipes. Kraft sends these customer emails with nacho recipes, but not all of them open. Kraft can upload that segment of customers and creatives with nacho ads into a CRM Retargeting platform, such as Facebook’s Custom Audience, and when the people in those segments log into Facebook, it will match that customer with the nacho ads.
You can learn more about CRM Retargeting by downloading this eBook.
Does LI use CRM Retargeting? (Y/N)
Yes, LiveIntent has a CRM Retargeting tool called LiveAudience – which makes it possible to match specific customers with specific ads whenever they open content sent by one of our publishers.
4. Programmatic.
Programmatic refers to an array of technologies that automate the buying, placement and optimization of media inventory. Essentially, programmatic is using machines to buy ads. This is beneficial because it’s easier, faster, and saves us time as a machine is the one doing the primary work. It’s also more efficient spending wise, since you’re only paying on an impression by impression basis and in a way that drives toward your goal through different pricing strategies like:
1. CTR (Click Through Rate): You pay based on the percentage of people who were served an ad and clicked on it.
2. CPC (Cost Per Click): You pay every time someone clicks on an ad.
3. CPA (Cost per Action): You pay for the number of times someone clicks on an ad and completes an action (buys something, signs-up, plays a video, etc).
You can learn more about programmatic by watching this video.
Does LI use Programmatic: (Y/N)
Yes. LiveIntent is the only way to reliably buy and sell ads programmatically in the email channel.
5. RTB.
This stand for “Real-Time Bidding” which is a form of programmatic buying that takes the form of an automated auction based on the available data about the person at the moment the ad is served. So, if the person clicks on an ad for Kraft but not an ad for Chase, then we know that ads for Kraft will be more successful from then on.
Does LI use Real-Time Bidding? (Y/N)
Yes, LiveIntent supports RTB. We use RTB to bid on our own inventory and have built our own bidder, similar to external bidders. LiveIntent bids on our own impressions and inventory.
6. API.
This stands for “Application Program Interface” and it is simply the joining of two software systems.
Does LI have an API: (Y/N)
Yes, LiveIntent has an API. We are building our own user interface that we will make available to other companies to build their own interface into our system however they wish. They can create their own screen and forms if they don’t like what we have on LFM. We also use the API ourselves, building a new user interfaces on top of the existing interface. We call it “eating our own dog food.”
7. DSP.
This stands for “Demand Side Platform.”
DSP’s have the ability to manage different ad exchange and data exchange accounts, giving marketers the ability to buy impressions based on specific criteria across lots of different kinds of inventory.
You can learn more about the DSP’s we work with on our Partner’s Page.
Is LI a DSP? (Y/N)
Yes, LiveIntent functions as a DSP for brands to buy impressions based on specific criteria across thousands of different email newsletters. LiveIntent is also integrated with several DSPs, including Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM), MediaMath, Digilant and SiteScout, as an inventory source.
8. SSP.
This stands for “Supply Side Platform.”
SSP’s give publishers or brands the ability to easily manage and sell more advertisements across their own supply and inventory. SSPs comes in handy when wanting to make inventory available to other people – like a DSP.
For Example: If a publisher comes to LiveIntent and says I am reserving 50% inventory to sell directly and releasing the other 50% of the inventory for LiveIntent to fill, they can do that while still maintaining control over things like pricing floors and making sure no competing brands are appearing in their content.
Is LiveIntent an SSP? (Y/N)
Yes, LiveIntent has SSP capabilities, in the sense that our publishers use our platform to easily sell and manage their email inventory.
9. ESP.
This stands for “Email Service Provider.”
ESP’s are companies that offers email services. Companies such as Meredith will hire an ESP company to distribute their content out to their email list and can do things like track of the status of each email address that is attached to a specific email list. ESP servers also have the ability to categorize an address list based on interests groups and categories. This can allow companies to target certain addresses that would value the content more than others.
You can learn more about the ESPs we work with on our Partner’s Page.
Is LI an ESP? (Y/N)
No, LiveIntent does not send the email, our LiveTags are in emails sent out by ESP companies looking to sell that inventory. ESPs that are “LiveCertified” are ones we have worked with to ensure our LiveTags are properly implemented and tested.
10. DMP.
This stands for “Data Management Platform.”
A DMP is a platform that takes in, sorts, and stores information. This is very useful for marketers, publishers, and other businesses as it is a simplified way of accessing data. DMP is primarily used to manage cookie IDs to generate ads to a specific audience, which can then be transferred to their DSP to track ad buying decisions. DMPs can also help with supply-side platform in helping them sell their ads.
You can learn more about cookies by watching this video.
You can learn more about the DMPs we work with on our Partner’s Page.
Is LI a DMP? (Y/N)
No, LiveIntent isn’t a DMP but we integrate with them. By integrating with DMPs ables mutual clients to have the ability to easily target the data from the DMP when buying on LiveIntent.
