At Phunware, as you may already know, we are big fans of data because of how it can help us understand our audiences better and deliver more relevant and authentically mobile experiences to people everywhere. We’re also big believers in partnering with other industry leaders to help marketers unlock the power of user data.
That’s why Phunware chose to partner with Lotame®, the leading independent data management platform (DMP). A DMP is essentially a data warehouse that, as Gartner for Marketers puts it, does three things:
- imports and unifies structured consumer data from various different systems,
- finds audiences as defined by advertisers or publishers across multiple data sources and data vendors, and
- sends instructions about who to target, with what message and where (i.e., which channel or device)—in effect, it activates all that data.
In other words, according to Martech Today, “a DMP offers a central location for marketers to access and manage data like mobile identifiers and cookie IDs to create targeting segments for their digital advertising campaigns.”
Through this partnership, Phunware’s data will be available to marketers in the Lotame DMP. This is fantastic news for marketers as it expands the Lotame DMP with access to Phunware’s deep and unique contextual mobile data. Consider:
- Phunware reaches one in every ten mobile consumers globally
- Phunware’s platform touches more than 700 million devices and 40 billion mobile user events every month
- We capture more than 70 unique types of event data—think of events as “moments”—like whether a user opens one of our apps, taps on an ad, appears around certain locations, etc.
Recently, we sat down with Lotame’s CEO and founder, Andy Monfried, to talk about trends in the DMP space and what makes the Phunware / Lotame partnership so exciting. Check out our conversation below.
- PW: How is growth in mobile adoption (smartphones, 4G, 5G) changing the DMP landscape?
AM: Consumers are “always on” today—and marketers need to be able to grab their attention on any screen, anytime. Before someone even leaves the house in the morning, they are checking their phone for the weather, getting status updates from their social circles, looking at their bank statement or ordering a cup of coffee from Starbucks. These moments have become an integral part of our lifestyle and, in turn, have a huge impact on how marketers reach their target audiences across screens.
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Because mobile devices are always on, marketers can collect a wealth of intelligence about users’ interests and actions, which is now vital to a successful integrated marketing strategy. DMPs like Lotame empower marketers by aggregating all this information (from desktop, mobile, offline, social, search, etc.) into one centralized platform.
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Lotame is leading the charge to help our customers put this valuable mobile data to work. Five years ago, audiences were built and campaigns were served to online and mobile audiences through separate platforms—without any clear understanding of audience overlap and without the ability to deliver sequential messages. Lotame’s cross-device technology determines the relationships that exist between billions of signals across platforms, so marketers can understand which ad to send to what audience at the right time.
- PW: How are brands using DMPs as part of their mobile strategy?
AM: The most basic uses include audience insights and analytics, targeting, and campaign optimization. The ability to link different devices together gives advertisers and publishers significant opportunities to target the right person on the right device.
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The more fluid the user experience across devices, the more likely the customer is to convert. To help enable this fluidity, marketers use Lotame’s DMP to improve their cross-screen targeting efforts (which also reduces their overall advertising spend).
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Frequency capping, for example, enables a marketer to limit the number of advertisements to any one person during a certain campaign. If an individual person uses two different devices every day (laptop and smartphone), cross-device frequency capping allows marketers to limit the number of ads that consumer sees. No one wants to send repeated messages to an audience that isn’t interested or isn’t responding—it’s wasteful for the marketer’s budget and for the consumer’s patience.
- PW: Why are some marketers slow to fully adopt DMPs, and what are they risking with their failure to launch?
AM: Many marketers have jumped on the DMP bandwagon, but there is a significant difference between a beginner and an advanced DMP user. I think one of the biggest challenges is education—more marketers need to fully understand what a DMP is and how it can be used effectively.
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For so long, marketers have made huge campaign decisions based on judgment or gut instinct. Working with a DMP would give them additional data points that could either back up or disprove these opinions. Analytics, campaign optimization, content personalization and retargeting capabilities are just a few of the many things a data management platform can do, but it takes education and experience to understand the advanced use cases of a DMP.
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Bottom line: the marketers who fail to keep up and adopt a DMP will be left in the dust.
- PW: Many people who are aware of DMPs think they’re just for ad buying. What other applications are there that execs need to know?
AM: Behaviorally targeted ads are the first basic business case, but we work with hundreds of companies who are using DMPs for so much more. Publishers use their audiences to customize content on their websites or serve personalized ads to specific audiences, which leads to increased engagement and time on site. Many brands and marketers use the DMP to learn more about their consumers through audience insights and analytics, then feed these insights back into their marketing plans to make sure they are effectively communicating with their targets. You can also use a DMP to optimize campaigns or simply for buying and selling second- or third-party data. The possibilities are varied and limitless.
- PW: How important is cross-device functionality with a DMP?
AM: Cross-device functionality is not an option anymore—it’s a requirement for successful data-driven marketers. When you understand consumer behavior across devices, you can target more accurately and improve campaign performance. Combining laptop, tablet, and cell phones via a device graph such as Lotame’s enables marketers to send consistent messages to one user on whichever device they are using at the time. Ultimately, this empowers marketers to target consumers across all devices in a productive, cost-effective way.
- PW: How does a relationship with Phunware enhance Lotame’s offering to brands?
AM: We’re excited about this partnership because Phunware brings a massive new mobile data set to our device graph. Phunware’s mobile reach is huge, gathering powerful data from hundreds of millions of devices. This will add another level of depth to the amount of information we know about each mobile device, which will help marketers know who they are sending ads to and when they are ready to buy.
Thanks, Andy! Everybody at Phunware is excited about this partnership as well. We can’t wait to get busy helping marketers build smarter engagements. To learn more about Phunware’s partnership with Lotame, view the press release: Phunware Partners with Lotame to Help Marketers Better Target and Convert Mobile Users.
Still curious about how data can help you achieve your business goals? Download our eBook to learn more about how you to harness the power of mobile data and turn it into smart strategy.
