A core tenet of any paid media program is understanding the audience and the platforms where you are placing media. Marketers are already making the shift from broad-based strategies across platforms to more nuanced approaches on specific platforms. Progressive data is emerging as an area where companies will want to spend time to better understand various segments of their audience to ensure that the content is being seen and connecting with the right audiences. Data sets help inform where media placements are going to have the biggest impact.
Here’s what we’re seeing. New sources of consumer data are becoming available, giving us visibility into audience behavior that we haven’t seen before. These “progressive” data types are ones we haven’t previously had access to – audience information in areas like cannabis, sports betting, and cryptocurrency. It’s one thing to look at CPG data for who is buying ibuprofen for pain, melatonin to help them sleep, or CBD products. It’s another to also be able to see data from a cannabis dispensary, telling us what products are being purchased, how frequently, how much money is being spent, and what the demographic of the customer making the purchase is. These are not new consumers, but newly recordable behaviors that help to fill in the buyer personas of what consumers are purchasing and maybe more importantly, where that data overlaps with other segments.
This new section of data gives us a lot more information on what buyers are doing in industries we’ve not had any visibility into before and with industries that had previously been illegal. Fyllo, a company that has a large ecosystem of cannabis and CBD purchase data and regulatory database, is showing the intersection of cannabis and data. Consider the impact this would have on your business if you could place media in front of the following audiences:
- A customer who buys CBD products for their dog to help with pain management or arthritis is also a customer that shops with national retailers, enjoys adult beverages, and enjoys an active lifestyle.
- A buyer who is shopping at a dispensary for CBD/THC products to help with anxiety and/or pain management is also a customer who buys “better for you” products at the grocery store and subscribes to premium streaming services.
- A consumer of cannabis products is also a fitness enthusiast, spends upwards of $300 on workout gear, and has purchased a piece of fitness equipment in the last 12 months.
All of this data helps inform marketing investments and companies are seeing results quickly, because it’s giving them access and visibility into behavior that they haven’t had prior. These progressive data segments represent a new frontier in audience data – the focus on misunderstood and underrepresented audiences.
The destigmatization of cannabis is happening rapidly. Even just five years ago, if you were to mention anyone using a cannabis product, you likely whispered it and only to someone you knew could be trusted. Now, people are talking openly about using CBD gummies to help them sleep, flashing their medical marijuana cards, and using pain relief creams and other cannabis products to help reduce inflammation. Cannabis, as an industry, is rapidly shifting from a fringe recreational product to a health product. If you’re working with clients in the healthcare, retail, CPG, or wellness industry, this is an audience you need to understand how to target.
The key takeaway – progressive data is showing us that audiences in “fringe” verticals have immense buying power and their behavior extends far beyond sports betting, cryptocurrencies, and cannabis. It adds a layer of understanding of who our audiences are and behaviors we are now able to track. It will impact where you choose to place media. We’re here to help you dig through the layers of audience data to determine the most effective media placements for your paid media dollars.