Schibsted has developed technology that also enables use of the company’s wide digital coverage regionally. Schibsted’s solution enables 90 percent of views on desktop to target municipalities with a precision rate of more than 80 percent. Corresponding figures for mobile show that 80 percent of inventory is accessible to geo-targeting at a similar rate of precision.
“This form of targeting offers national and regional advertisers a brand new tool for effective local communication with wide coverage. Moreover, advertisements will be perceived as far more relevant by consumers,” says Per Håkon Fasting, VP Advertising in Schibsted Norge.
One of the major improvements is the introduction of geo-targeting for mobile. Mobile traffic continues to grow, but until now geo-targeting for mobile has faced considerable challenges in terms of precision and range. The challenges with precision are due to the fact that large portions of traffic come from users surfing on 3G and 4G. The challenge for solutions with enhanced precision in terms of defining locations based on GPS or beacons is an inherent weakness which enables them to cover only parts of the user mass.
“Schibsted’s new algorithms enable us to upgrade locations of traffic on 3G and 4G devices to the last known location of the mobile phone. If there is no Wi-Fi data, the device will be filtered out to improve the level of precision. Schibsted’s algorithms enable us to upgrade locations for around half of the traffic on 3G and 4G devices. This means that we can improve targeting accuracy for advertisers on mobile and combine it with wide coverage. In addition, advertisers only reach and pay for users whose locations we know with a high degree of certainty, and avoid paying for users whose locations are uncertain,” says Rian Liebenberg, CTO for Schibsted Media Group.
What is Schibsted’s strategy?
Through Schibsted’s ecosystem in Norway, where a wide range of companies cooperate on common login systems and platforms, unique data points are built on every single user cross-device that can be integrated into the system.
“We believe that we can be competitive in the local advertising market by having unique and effective targeting capabilities, which is in high demand by advertisers, and increases relevancy for our users. The goal is to offer the market the best possible advertising solutions that cover the entire customer lifecycle,” says Liebenberg.
“It makes sense to find good, substantial value propositions such as targeting based on sound and unique data, and it makes just as good sense to want to control the interface with the customer associated with that value proposition: the options and the way in which it is sold, and – not least – based on a business model which we can control and which our advertisers want,” says Frode Eilertsen, EVP Digital and Group Chief Product Officer in Schibsted Media Group.
“Moreover, our ‘glocal’ strategy is to offer customers in one and the same process, both targeting in terms of display/programmatic technology AND content marketing, sponsoring, events, etc.; what can be called local content and/or custom content. We must reach our users with the right messages in the right way across our sites and across channels with innovative and flexible price and inventory models. This is something we believe our major international competitors are unable to deliver. This sums up Schibsted’s strategy,” Eilertsen explains.
