Dot2Dot Adds Segmentation Targeting To Ad Manager

February 14, 2013 by Dave Haynes

Dot2Dot Communications, the Toronto company that is the team known for a few years as Scala Canada, is back at its roots of   ad inventory management and scheduling, and has announced a demographic targeting module that leverages consumer insights from another Toronto company, DM Squared.

The integrated tool, exclusive to Dot2Dot’s Ad Manager software, provides the ability to choose locations using multiple demographic conditions, or to develop a content strategy based on the profile of the surrounding audience.

Most digital signage targeting doesn’t get a lot more sophisticated than location and some fairly broad demographics, but this stuff can go all the way down to consumer segments and life stages. That kind of micro-targeting can be really powerful in stuff like direct mail, but I wasn’t clear on how it would be applied in the context of digital signage.

So I asked Andy McRae, General Manager at Dot2Dot, to provide a little more detail. “We see many different uses for this module,” says McRae.

“First, pre-planning. Our clients in the DOOH space will create a profile for each location to allow advertisers to target the audience they are interested in.”

“Second, post show analysis. Did a particular program reach the intended audience profile. By pulling in sales data we can also see if goals were met.”

“Third, content development. Our digital place-based customers who are using Ad Manager would be interested in the demographic profile of the surrounding audience in order to create a targeted content strategy. For example, a convenience store may have a draw of 2 km so knowing who lives within that 2 km will help them develop a meaningful content strategy to lead to more sales or achieve whatever business objectives they have. Chains could now develop regional content programs rather than one overall strategy that does not necessarily resonate with any of their actual customers.”

“We firmly believe that companies can not look at their digital signage in isolation. It needs to be part of the bigger communications plan that includes things like direct mail, other advertising, static in-store or co-op. Using this tool will allow a company to understand better who they are talking to and Ad Manager itself allows them to pull all their media into one program. They would use outside advertising to bring people to the location and in-store advertising to deliver on the message made outside. The profile information ensures it is relevant.”

Though both companies are Canadian, their is highly granular data available for both Canada and the US.

Dot2Dot will be at Scala’s DSE 2013 booth, #922, doing demos.

High granular targeting capabilities are common across a lot of enterprise-grade platforms, but the targeting is of course only as good as the data being used. Having this stuff could be very powerful. The bigger question, though, is how many network operators – ad-based,retail or corporate – have the people and strategy to be working at this level of sophistication.