Will consumers opt-in for ad targeting? The idea seems a far-fetched one, but one company is betting publishers can get active participation by users in making the ads they see relevant to their interests. Janrain is a company which has brands as diverse as MTV, Sears and Kia Motors as clients. According to the company, single-sign-on, tied to social identities and their corresponding social graph, is a viable solution that solves privacy issues as well as creates an effective data funnel across platforms and devices.
“Collecting and storing social data obtained with user permission e.g. demographics, interests and social graph can help brands with dynamic segmentation,” said Vidya Shivkumar, product director at Janrain. “Social data is not only easy to obtain but is also the most current. It can be refreshed at each social login, make it even more powerful to brands.”
That type of implicit opt-in based strategy doesn’t require a complete rebuild of flagship site architecture to effect compliance with even the most stringent guidelines, but it does require sufficient content to make consumers engage with the site beyond basic product information.
“Social Logins, Social Sharing and Friend Invites/Refer a Friend are three simple tools in any CMOs toolkit,” said Shivkumar.”Giving users a reason to login to the site by offering communities and encouraging participation drives user generated content. Social Login expedites the registration process and provides opt-in data to the brand. Social sharing and Friend Invites drive viral and highly qualified traffic back to the brand. None of these tools rely on cookies or implicit data collection from the user.”
While privacy compliance is a nice bonus of social-logins, the core appeal of single-sign on protocol is that it makes the transition from data being collected by third parties and being volunteered simple. Allowing a single click from a social network to open up a valuable data flow of personally identifiable information is one of the best ways that brands can stay ahead of standards regulation as well as create a viable option for users to engage with brands in real-time, allowing for more accurate behavioral targeting.
“Today’s user is willing to trade data about themselves by using social logins for online convenience – speedier registration, incentives/coupons, personalized user experience on sites.” said Shivkumar. “The same study by Blue Research showed that consumers in favor of accessing a site through a social login are more likely to return to the site, buy at a site that automatically recognizes them and spend more on site.”
Consumers won’t stay online at sites that offer sub-par content, but they will engage with brands that are able to tailor ad and product search experiences based on information that is readily available via the social graph. Simplifying access to product information and commerce’s the opposite of what Do Not Track legislation will do, and that’s the position that CMOs should want to be in.
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