5Qs with Buysight CEO Shaukat Shamim

Buysight is a behavioral targeting company focusing on ecommerce and social activity data for brands and marketers. Shaukat Shamim, co-founder and CEO of Buysight spoke with DIGIDAY : DATA about the changes in the industry as well as the newer trend of "remarketing".

Q: How have the data analysis and audience targeting industries changed in the last few years?

Two important changes have taken place in the space in the last couple of years: we've gone from making indirect assumptions about consumer intent to directly measuring that intent, and we've moved from static pictures of audiences to real-time, dynamic maps of individuals. Behavioral targeting to general interest audience segments-Moms, Outdoor Enthusiasts, Car Aficionados-relies on the likelihood that those interests correlate with intent to buy certain types of products.

It's not enough to know that a consumer is interested in outdoor sports, anymore. Advertisers want to know who in that "outdoor sports" category is shopping for a ski jacket versus who is shopping for a backpack. They also need that information updated in real time. How close are they to making those purchases? If they stopped shopping I need to know that. If they shifted their purchase intent yesterday, I need to shift as well. Those are the real-time, consumer-level insights that are driving truly effective targeted advertising today.

Q: How does audience data maintain relevance after the initial "snapshot" of the customer is taken. In other words, does data really keep giving us new insights?

That's a great question because it again shows how "audience data" differs from understanding individual behavior. Association with broad interest audience groups may not change that quickly. To use our example above, an "outdoor enthusiast" remains so even after they've bought what they are shopping for. But actual purchase intent data ages very quickly. Someone can be exhibiting high purchase intent for a backpack and be an ideal candidate for a product-specific ad. However, once that purchase is made, all future backpack ads become irrelevant and ignored. But that same person is shopping for other products, and that picture keeps changing.

We don't want to take a "snapshot" as much as we want to create a dynamic map of their intent-we call it a Buyer Intent MapT-and when we deliver an ad, we always want to be checking the real-time version of that map. The data is constantly giving us new insights if we're looking directly at purchase behavior and not at broad demographic or interest profiles.

Q: Do buying trends speak to broader demographic changes like values? And if so, how does it relate to a brand's bottom line?

One trend we definitely see, beyond the macro trend of more and more people making a higher percentage of their purchases online, is the ability of shoppers to do more comparison shopping across a broader set of retailers. It's essentially the reverse of the trends we see in the brick-and-mortar space, where big-box retailers have been squeezing out Mom and Pop shops for years. Online, it is more and more likely that consumers will visit multiple retailers before making a purchase decision, and consider advice from friends and others in social spaces as part of their shopping process. Even the largest online retailers like Amazon provide multiple vendors for the same products.

It's more important then ever for retailers to get a consumer's attention when they are ready to buy, and the fact that a consumer stopped by their site in the past does not mean they're coming back without some prompting. Search engine marketing is important, but display ads have to be part of that mix as well if you can do it profitably. Today, with the right data, you can. For brands, this trend has implications as well.

Gone are the days when you can do trade marketing with just the biggest retailers and feel comfortable you're going to be in the consideration set. Consumers are buying from niche retailers all over the Internet, and choosing from a wider brand set than ever before, crossing geographic boundaries as well. So for brands they need to be in front of those consumers as they shop as well, and the more they can focus on those shoppers that are actively looking for products in their category the more they're going to be in that consideration set.

Q: How are companies now beginning to understand the relevance of real-time data and what does it mean to the bottom line decisions about marketing?

The message we deliver to clients that resonates with them is that their online display advertising needs to follow the same formula their successful search marketing campaigns follow: understand intent, respond to that intent in real-time, and tie cost to performance. When you use that formula, targeted display ads generate a return on ad spend on par with search, while offering enormous volume and reach. It fills in the piece of the puzzle that was missing from display advertising for advertisers, like retailers, that have had a hard time justifying banner ads.

With the rise of real-time media buying platforms and the use of real-time targeting, marketers can value every impression as efficiently as possible and tap into the enormous reach of display with greatly improved results. Buysight clients, for example, are seeing an 200-300% lift in conversions to purchase when they use our real-time Buyer Targeting and dynamic ads to response directly to the consumers' demonstrated purchase intent. Their return-on-ad-spend is right in line with their search engine marketing. We're even seeing that post-impression conversion rates, even where the user has not clicked on the ad, are 2.5 times higher on average, and sometimes dramatically higher, than their overall conversion rates.

Q: Remarketing has been around for a while, but it seems like a hot trend right now. Why now?

Everyone should be using remarketing techniques. You just can't ignore the numbers. Only a small percentage of site visitors complete a transaction, but there's a reason they were there in the first place, and getting them back to close the sale is just smart. But it is not a foregone conclusion that you're going to be able to do so profitably. A marketer has a choice of methods to drive previous visitors back to the site, and they'll choose the ones that provide solid return-on-investment, and remarketing has to be justified on that performance metric.

Successful remarketing will follow the same formula discussed above: understand intent, respond in real-time, tie cost to performance. Data needs to be updated in real-time, ads need to reflect the consumer's intent, and of course, it has to pay off with broad reach and high conversion rates. To be able to meet goals, the remarketing firm has to be able to drive costs down by bidding for media in real time and getting high click-through rates on the ads they run. When remarketing programs are done right, studies show they are the best bang for the buck of any display advertising tactic.