Perspectives

Bridging audience insights and media activation through effective segmentation

Suzanne Carbonell

L.A. Partner, Hall & Partners

In today's data-rich environment, brands have unprecedented access to consumer insights. However, many fail to effectively apply their segmentations in media planning. It’s time brands learned how to adapt.

Segmentations enable precise audience targeting, aligning messages with consumer habits and needs. Yet, traditional segmentations often overlook personality traits and values, focusing solely on demographics and media behaviour. This results in a disconnect between detailed psychographic data and media purchasing, hindering message personalisation and targeted media placement.

Effective segmentations should include:

Client understanding – Segments must resonate with the client and key stakeholders, aiding adoption. If not, there's a low chance that the segmentation will be accepted. Conducting detailed client discovery and working together to create survey questions can usually solve this problem.

Rich Profiling – Segmentation should provide a comprehensive profile of human experience and emotion, aiding creative departments in understanding audience needs and desires. Without detailed profiling, creative departments may struggle to understand their target audiences on a personal level. Purposeful questionnaire development and persona building is crucial.

Actionable Insights – Segmentation should drive actionable insights for media planning, shaping communication strategies effectively.

Segmentations are valuable research assets that should inform brand activities. However, they often remain underused or neglected, buried deep within presentation decks. Innovative approaches are needed to link segmentation samples with media consumption data, improving targeting capabilities and providing a competitive advantage.

It's essential to include robust segment identification and location within segmentations. Suitable demographic information enables media agencies to locate target audiences easily, ensuring efficient ad spends. Linking segments to customer databases and harnessing consumer demographics can address this challenge.

Great segmentations should enable growth through proper application. Innovative techniques linking segmentation samples to media consumption enhance targeting and help maximise the value of audience insights.

There exists a vast untapped potential to improve how well the latest marketing science techniques and tools work which can make them even more helpful for advertisers. With advancements in technology and data analytics, advertisers have unprecedented opportunities to refine their strategies, optimise campaigns, and maximise returns on investment.