Significance of Data in Advertising

You can run. But you can't hide. Internet has made very easy to gather data about users and prospective customers because users leave traces wherever they go. Everything people do online is followed and tracked by advertisers.

Advertisers want to serve you the ads that are best suited to your likes and dislikes. Targeted ads that match your taste preferences improve your experience as a consumer — who wants to see ads for products completely unrelated to their tastes? Through the collection of non-PII, advertisers have access to the information they need to segment their ads, increasing the relevancy of products and messages being shown.

Why Advertisers collect Data?

Advertisers don't have access to personally identifiable information. You are just another opportunity for sale. When your online browsing behaviors informs which segments you are a good fit for, you will begin to see ads for items and services you might actually be interested in. This may seem more of a benefit for the advertiser than for you, but consider how exciting it is to see that your favorite online retailer is having an exclusive 30% off sale?

As a consumer, the perks of targeted advertising are that you see ads tailored to what you like and are actually interested in. You discover things you wanted, and you get promotions that are designed just for you. Targeted advertising is done without posing a threat to your online privacy, as this all occurs without ever capturing any identifying information.

Examples of Non-PII (Personally Identifiable Information):

• Browser type
• Browser plug-in details
• Local time zone
• Date and time of each visitor request (i.e. arrival, exit on each web page)
• Language preference
• Referring site
• Device type (i.e. desktop, laptop, or smartphone)
• Screen size, screen color depth, and system fonts

How Data is collected?

The advertising industry obtains its data in two main ways. “First-party” data are collected by firms with which the user has a direct relationship. Advertisers and publishers can compile them by requiring users to register online. This enables the companies to recognise consumers across multiple devices and see what they read and buy on their site.

“Third-party” data are gathered by thousands of specialist firms across the web. To gather information about users and help serve appropriate ads, sites often host a slew of third parties that observe who comes to the site and build up digital dossiers about them. BlueKai, for example, compiles around 1 billion profiles of potential customers around the world, each with an average of 50 attributes.