The Netflix phenomenon “Squid Game” — a South Korean survival drama series — was chock full of valuable lessons: “red light, green light” is not just an innocent kids’ pastime; sugar honeycomb is very fragile; and don’t lose your marbles — literally.
Its most pertinent lesson for marketers, however, is this: before taking action, always make sure you have the right tools, strategies, and diversified channels to communicate your message efficiently. That’s the takeaway shared by Yu Ning Ning, Vice President of R&D at Taboola, during the December 2021 Marketing Technology Summit held by the Digital Times in Taipei, Taiwan.
As the world’s #1 discovery platform, Taboola is on the cutting edge of marketing technology, continuously improving its tools to help advertisers reach their target audiences on the open web. Especially since consumers’ screen time doubled as a result of the pandemic — and third-party cookies are going away — it’s more important than ever that marketers have the data and technologies they need to cut through the noise and grab people’s attention.
In her talk, Ning Ning shared how businesses can harness the power of evolving martech to do just that.
Here’s how.
Deliver Personalized Experiences at Scale
Since consumers’ behaviors have changed due to COVID-19, marketers’ behaviors have to change as well.
The traditional strategy of “one-size-fits-all” content will no longer cut it. Brands and agencies have to adapt to an ever-changing world where people are seeking personalized experiences across touchpoints, prioritizing the convenience of e-commerce, and shaking up loyalty companies once though they could count on.
Only with personalized recommendation technologies fueled by real-time prediction capabilities can brands connect customers with the products and services they’re looking for, and drive conversions and revenue.
Reach Consumers Across the Open Web
Brands have to expand beyond just social media and are diversifying their campaign distribution across the open web. Why? Because certain platforms are holding their data behind walled gardens and consumers are growing distrustful of social platforms.
As Taboola found, Taiwanese users’ trust in content is highest on news channels they choose themselves. But that trust drops dramatically when it comes to content on social media. So brands would be wise to reach users with personalized experiences on those news sites where they’re already comfortable and engaged.
As Ning Ning said, “Personalized recommendations made by martech and deep learning not only waived the privacy concerns, but also shortened the consumer shopping journey!”
Invest in First-Party Data Strategies
Traditionally, brands have had to collect a large amount of third-party consumer data to perform contextual targeting, which not only has hidden concerns for personal privacy, but also widens the gap between media outlets, advertisers, and consumers.
Now, with the right AI technologies, they can collect and activate their own first-party data — gathered directly from customers in more privacy-safe ways. In less than a second, AI systems can process a large amount of that data, analyze user behavior, and then predict people’s preferences, delivering the right ads in the right place at the right time.
Ensure Brand Safety
It’s common for brands to exclude negative keywords in an open network environment in an effort to control brand safety. The problem is that they lose many valuable exposure opportunities in the process.
That’s why Taboola uses intelligent technology to classify media content in a way that ensures the safety of the brand without sacrificing valuable reach. Our platform is able to use consumer data to instantly analyze the most suitable ad placements. By comparing behavioral data with online clues, Taboola can filter through the noise and build comprehensive customer profiles.
Tap Into a Global Community of Martech Experts
Taboola has more than 1,700 employees around the world with 500 R&D personnel and an annual budget of $100 million dedicated to continuously improving its martech. In 2017, we cooperated with the Ministry of Science and Technology to help bridge Taiwan’s top AI talents with US stakeholders. And in 2020, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, we established the only APAC R&D Center in Taiwan.
With these resources in place, Taboola has the power to respond to rapidly changing technological trends in real time, make good use of the local first-party data in the Taiwan market, and create better user experiences for publishers, brands, and consumers across the globe.