Enhancing User Experiences: The Power of Data in the User-Centric Era
In the User-Centric Era (UCE), an era dominated by personalized experiences, mastering the art of data use is crucial. It's the core for transforming advertising and content delivery. This article explores the relations between data, user engagement, and content relevance. How can media companies use data to create a better user experience and do better advertising?
In our first article, ‘Escape the Content Chaos: Navigate the User-Centric Era’, we explored the UCE, followed by ‘Navigating the Future of Storytelling & Monetization in the User-Centric Era’, where we delved deeper into the future of storytelling & monetization. Our previous article covered trust and relationships between the media and today’s audiences, ‘Navigating Trust and Relationships in the User-Centric Era’. Together with ESHAP, we created a full day of programming at SXSW: ‘Next Now: The Future of Media, which aimed at creating a new media ecosystem. During this article, we’ll explore the insights from our last session ‘Data to Make Better Media’ on how to use data as a tool to create both better content and advertising delivery.
How can data create a better user experience by leveraging the value of content and creating more effective and personalized advertising? That’s the question that we addressed in the last panel, presented by VideoAmp and moderated by Evan Shapiro, cartographer of the Media Universe and founder of change agency, ESHAP. The Panel featured: Josh Hudgins: Chief Product Officer, at VideoAmp, who leads VideoAmp’s product, program management, and business development teams; Travis Scoles, Senior Vice President of Advanced Advertising at Paramount, where he oversees all aspects of Vantage, Paramount’s advanced advertising solution, as well as other internal data optimization and analysis products; and Miranda Marcus, Executive Product Manager for BBC News Labs, leading a team of journalists and engineers to identify and deliver innovations that have an impact in a complex newsroom environment.
Leveraging Data for Better Content Experiences
Using data to offer better content and create a better user experience comes with both challenges and opportunities. In today’s landscape, there is a lot of data available but often not the crucial data that gives the complete picture or the most value.
Data gets collected from individuals engaging with media, creating a challenge in understanding why non-engaging audiences are disinterested and how to encourage their interaction. The absence of required sign-ins or opt-ins on some platforms further compounds this issue, limiting insights into audience preferences. This obstacle makes it harder to create personalized user experiences, which is critical in the UCE. Public service media, which rely on government funding, face additional challenges as their data collection is limited. To sustain funding, they must broaden their reach, particularly among the 15 to 30 age group that are mostly present on digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Failure to adapt risks declining consumption as these youngsters age and new generations emerge with again different motivations to consume media on platforms outside of public service media. How do you create meaningful experiences for youngsters when they are not present on your platforms?
Meaningful experiences are hard to offer when there are gaps in the data, a challenge caused by the guiding principles for collecting data on streaming platforms. Most algorithms don’t recommend to people specifically, but a group of people with similar interests or in other words: similar data. This is because the US guiding principles do not allow platforms to collect data on an individual basis, not even log-on. This rule dates back to when people would rent physical DVD's to prevent others from knowing if anyone had rented adult movies. Even though this service doesn’t really exist anymore, its guiding principles are used for streaming platforms as well. Outdated guidelines create a lesser user experience. Data collection is by many users seen as a threat and creates fear of data harvesting, which can cause people to decide to not sign in to certain platforms or to have distrust towards media.
On the other hand, data provides many opportunities to create a better user experience. It can be used to build better relationships and trust, with data functioning as a fact-checking tool. Providing the consumer with information on the creator, timing and location is a good step in making media more trustworthy. Brand integrity, the message you send to your consumers and the detection of misinformation can help build trust. Labelling misinformation can be done by analysing collected data such as weather reports, Google Streetview and even the placement of shadows to determine the time. Also, the recognition of AI can be done through reviewing data such as writing style. Data can help create more trustworthy and personalised experiences, but at the moment it's not possible yet as there is a need for collaboration between platforms to create a single cache of data so that cross-platform experiences can be enhanced. Data’s purpose in media is to inform and support the creation of better user experiences.
Data to do Better Advertising: Enhancing Experiences and Efficiency
Many user experiences are ruined by bad advertising: repeated clips, irrelevant advertising and bad timing all contribute to this lacking user experience. While many think advertising in general is the problem, the way advertisers approach users is the real issue. Ads are supposed to contribute to the user experience while also being a persuasive medium.
Data has changed advertising over the years, from what used to be only print to now being personalized advertising on a glass screen in the palm of our hands. In the current media landscape, up to 80% of the advertising space on traditional media will be sold before May 2024. However, more and more people are leaving the traditional media space because they don’t get enough excitement which leads to them entering digital platforms. Needless to say, this caused a big shift in advertising. For advertising to generate anticipation, it must be personalised and relevant to the consumers themselves, just like the content on the platforms they are displayed on. But how do we use consumption to monetize good advertising? Data can help with that. Most of the problems that contribute to creating a bad user experience in terms of advertising can be solved with data.
Advertising needs to be as efficient as possible, but factors like over-frequency and irrelevance ruin the experience. Over-frequency happens when consumers have many subscriptions to different services or get their content from different platforms that all collect the same data, but this data is not filtered or shared, leading to displaying the same ad multiple times over all these different platforms. To monitor this frequency, it’s important to work together as media organisations and share data across platforms. By combining data from multiple platforms, ads can be personalised and the frequency can be monitored, leading to a better user experience overall. To do so, one needs large datasets, which were previously only offered by Nielsen (the global leader in audience measurement). With the fragmentation in the landscape, more companies appeared to offer such data sets, for example VideoAmp. By making the interoperability between platforms work while taking into account privacy laws, they can create a coherent experience across different platforms. It’s not an easy task to create such big datasets in a complex landscape with outdated privacy guidelines. But it's these big data sets that help ensure interoperability between devices and platforms. Another current problem with advertising is knowing who likes what. Was the ad well perceived, did they buy the product or not, etc? Advertising becomes more valuable once people buy the offer, which allows advertisers to charge more for the ad.
The fragmentation of the landscape does not only cause over-frequency, it also influences how effectiveness is measured. Measuring the success of advertisements used to be much easier as the channels were limited, but a new metric is needed in the current fragmented landscape. If success can be measured well across platforms, it becomes easier to create effective and efficient advertising. The good news is that enough data and privacy infrastructures to create these cross-platform advertising experiences on digital platforms are available and the user experience can thus be enhanced if there is collaboration.
Platforms that do not require the user to sign-in or opt-in can only collect limited data, making it harder to target ads. On the one hand, the user might receive completely irrelevant advertising, while on the other hand over-frequency can happen and the user can receive the same ad a thousand times even though they might have already bought the product or service. There are many ways to create a better user experience with advertisements by using data, for example integrating it into storytelling or gamification. The hard part about these techniques is to get the user experience right: often the ad itself is good, but the way it's delivered takes away from the core message of the ad, namely pursuing the user to buy the offer. Therefore, it’s important to increase the value of the ad and not the ad load.
From Insights to Action: Creating a Relevant, Efficient, and Coherent User Experience
How can we use data to make better media? Why does advertising take from the user experience while it actually should add value? Based on the insights from the panel conversation at SXSW, media companies can take several steps to enhance user experiences:
- Uphold principles of trust and transparency by ensuring data privacy, providing clear communication about data usage and combating misinformation through data-backed verification.
- Invest in strategies to collect comprehensive data that provides a deep understanding of audience behaviour and preferences, including those who do not interact directly with the content.
- Utilise collected data to tailor content and user experiences to individual preferences, ensuring relevance and engagement across diverse audience segments.
- Use data-driven insights to deliver personalised and timely advertising that adds value to the user experience.
- Work collaboratively with other media platforms to share data responsibly, enabling a seamless and coherent user experience across multiple channels.
Navigating the complexities of data in media presents both challenges and opportunities. By using data effectively, media creators can not only improve content delivery and advertising, but also build trust and relevance in an ever-evolving landscape to create a better user experience.
Want to watch the full session of ‘Data to Make Better Media’? You can do that here.