How marketers can use data to shape beliefs and influence action

What if you are the way you are, and you take the actions you do because of strategically placed ads and articles online? What if your behaviour is being modified without your conscious knowledge?

We all know advertisers on the internet are stalking us, but Kirk Grogan shows us that marketers now have the power to change not just our buying behaviours, but our beliefs. The key is in understanding how aggregated user data can be used to group people into predictable stages in the persuasion journey.

We are all being stalked, and we know it.

You shop for a pair of shoes online and for the next several weeks, ads for brown tassel loafers follow you across the internet. Well, if you're my grandfather it’s the loafers... for me, it was a pair of Chuck Taylors.

We're sophisticated enough to know that this type of cyber stalking sneaker ad has something to do with ad tracking, big data and maybe even A.I., but what made you feel the need to buy a pair of brown tassel loafers in the first place? Just preference, right? You needed new shoes, you know what you like, what colours would go with your wardrobe - so you picked those.

Are you sure?

What if I told you, you were groomed step-by-step to prefer and purchase those exact shoes, from that exact website, and that those same grooming techniques could be used to make you commit atrocities.

I'm not paranoid. I'm a marketer.

Consumers don't fear that their data is being aggregated because consumers don't understand how it can be used to manipulate them, to groom them and to change their behaviour. The average consumer is likely to believe they are a unique individual with unchecked free will, and that there is nothing particularly special about them that would be worthy of tracking or collecting. From a digital marketing perspective, however, all of these assumptions are false.

As consumers, we are not unique. While each individual may have their own quirks, constant and pervasive collection of data has allowed us to place them into a group of thousands or millions of others with similar traits and beliefs.

It's these very similarities that allow marketers to review what worked on consumers in the past, and then guide new users onto that same path. No free will required. My job entails advising billion dollar corporations how to most effectively guide their customers through these steps, and despite this, I myself don't have the free will to resist. I literally do this for a living and I still buy products I see in online advertisements all the time.

Image: dirkcuys

Here's what's happening behind the scenes: Tracking, Prediction, and Behaviour Modification.

Tracking is constant, and honestly the easiest. When I say constant, I mean it. It isn't only what website you went to or came from…

It's how far into every video you watch. It's from what device It’s where you were when you opened every email. It's who you're around in real life.

If every person reading this gave me only their grocery list for the next 60 days, I can most likely give you scarily accurate information about you. Maybe I can tell you what your work schedule is or that you're prone to taking risks, or something as simple as you're attempting your third diet this year - a keto vegan diet perhaps.

We track until we can predict. While online data collection has made predicting easy, prediction itself is old news. Way back in 2010 using only shopper loyalty cards, retailers could track consumers purchases so well that they were able to determine the likelihood of a woman being pregnant - before that woman knew she was pregnant herself.

Think about that. Our data trail can spoil one of our most intimate and celebrated discoveries. But how do they do that? While pregnant women tend to develop a unique shopping pattern, their bodies begin to reject certain smells, driving them to scent free lotions and creams. They also crave certain vitamins and minerals to help the developing babies. The mother doesn't have to consciously shop for these products, human biology demands it. While individuals might not recognise these patterns, when millions of data points are grouped together, the conclusions become increasingly obvious.

Every major corporation that collects your data knows that secret. The more data you have, the better. The better you begin to understand everything your consumer does, the more accurately you can predict the most effective methods to sell them products.

If you're the first company to know that a woman is pregnant, you stand to gain a customer who, for 18 years, will now be shopping for a family.

Okay, so data can be used to track us understand us, maybe better than we would like but that's not an issue right? Companies know who I am and they serve me related products. Sounds nice, actually. It removes the burden of me having to find the products I might love to buy.

Here's the problem:

What if you are the way you are, and you take the actions you do because of strategically placed ads and articles online? What if your behaviour is being modified without your conscious knowledge?

You know the social media quizzes that determine what kind of dog you are, or find out what type of wine you would be? You know the type: Becky's going to share on social that she's a pinot noir because “she can doll herself up or dress casual, making her the perfect wine for any situation”. Or maybe “you're a rosé because you live for a Summer patio!”

To the marketer it doesn't matter what wine you are, it’s the 10 non wine-related questions you just answered that are being compared to the rest of your data to figure out what group of consumers you're most similar to.

You give off data every moment. It isn't only from the search engines and the social media platforms that you use; those are just the easiest methods to track you. Just by attending an event like, for example, a local TEDx, you're transmitting data. I can find out how much a ticket to the event costs and I know the opportunity cost - I know what else is going on in the surrounding area.

So I can begin making assumptions:

Most people in at a TEDx event are middle-class or above, have a predisposition to learning or disruptive thoughts. They're most likely an extrovert who enjoys mingling with large crowds (or they would have just watched the video on YouTube). They value being early adopters or the first to conform to a new idea or way of approaching issues. So, if I had a hypothetical client who was selling, say, an arm patch to reduce hangovers, I might create something similar to this.

A sales funnel:

It highlights the steps I have to take to guide or funnel the audience members here to my goal of buying my client’s patch. Group TEDx starts with the nearly 3000 people at the event, highly social, intelligent extroverts with disposable income, who like new things.

Step one is to qualify, so I'm going to filter by age first.

Then, I might hire influencers, who other TEDx groups follow on traditional or social media, to make you aware of my brand by posting or advocating for my hangover patch.

Then I'll compare everyone who engaged or clicked on that influencers post, and I'll pay your favourite bloggers to review my patch and link back to my website.

I'll track every person who came to my website and pay for a Facebook Ad to ask you for your email in exchange for my 10 guaranteed tips, to get a hangover ebook.

I'll compare everyone's email who subscribed to the upcoming public Facebook event called Seattle bar crawl. I'll schedule three emails to go out to you at intervals leading up to the event, each offering a larger discount on my hangover patch.

And voila, a few of these emails will lead to sales.

Now I'll go find a new event or demographic and I'll go through the whole process again.

Bonus points:

Due to the many apps on your phone that know where you are at all times, I have the ability to know where you visit frequently. I email my B2B sales team and they go sell 50 boxes to the local 711, knowing that all of you are likely to be hungover in that area. It can sound complicated and don't worry if you didn't follow all the steps, just know that these things are intern level tracking and marketing.

Consider this:

Using methods I've mentioned, researchers at Cambridge University were able to understand an individual’s personality better than his own family members could after analysing just 150 likes on Facebook. They could understand that subject’s personality better than his or her spouse could after just 300 likes.

More importantly, companies with this information know how to make you engage with different products and ideas. They know what makes you sad, what ignites the fire in you, what your vulnerabilities are.

Because that's what we do as marketers, isn't it? We manipulate. We take a product you most likely don't need and may never even use and we manipulate you emotionally to believe it's something you have to buy. This usually seems harmless, but what if these tactics aren't used to sell you shoes, but beliefs.

Let's look at that sales funnel again:

Here's a sales funnel I created after reviewing documents and first person accounts of western-educated ISIS recruits. The strategy is the same.

We look at our existing customers and review their data to find other groups online that qualify as our target group.

Then we expose them to our products and ideas through well-known individuals.

Next, we might share information with them through multiple sources they already engage with or trust.

Slowly, we drive them to echo chambers in the form of websites, forums or social media groups that other potential customers and recruits are in.

Finally, we're moving towards personalising a message to them, and we personalise this to make them feel like this idea was exactly what they were looking for, or they needed.

And they're ready to buy a product, or perhaps fly to Turkey so they can illegally cross into Syria. But every recruit was certain they made the choice to join — just like my Chuck Taylors.

Just like in 2016, when liberals and conservatives alike were targeted with millions of dollars of advertisements from a foreign nation. Just like today, as our political and racial divides grow wider.

A moment has quietly passed in society that is desperately important.

This moment was when a small number of humans realised that, by compiling massive amounts of data, they could proactively and intentionally shape our beliefs.

They discovered they could funnel consumers to a goal and mould them along the way to behave like the ideal customer, or activist, or citizen, or extremist.

Nothing I've mentioned is what's upcoming in the distant future or what might occur as a possible eventuality. Everything I've discussed are things I have personally done for clients and I guarantee I'm not the smartest marketer out there. Even the brightest people are not immune to digital manipulation, and peace can't be reached by deleting yourself from the digital world.

What we really need is open dialogue and a collective understanding of how these tactics have divided us - and how we can reconcile those differences.

It requires we all recognise that individuals who are neither elected, nor removable have the capability to alter and impact our daily lives. Most importantly, it requires we recognise that every single one of us, and our beliefs and thoughts, may not be as uniquely ours as we would like to think.

I want you to recognise one thing:

Your data is valuable. It is valuable as a consumer, as a voter and as a human. If you need proof, try to find a single person in your life has never seen an ad on Google or Facebook. If you can't, it's because companies find all of your decisions valuable.

Your data is quite literally your life story, and I sincerely hope that you are the only author crafting that narrative.

---

Kirk Grogan is a marketing and sales strategist in Seattle. After witnessing how people in different countries receive drastically different news and information, Kirk began to see parallels with the world of data marketing. He now consults with Fortune 100 companies, where he coaches and leads marketing teams to develop conversion testing methods, and teaches them how to engage with potential customers in an organic environment. He has developed multiple unique strategies that are currently implemented across the business world, helping brands connect and build loyalty with consumers.

---

This is an extract from a 2019 talk delivered by Kirk Grogan entitled “The dark side of our personal marketing data” delivered at TEDxSeattle, published under a Creative Commons Attribution License

Why targeting a small audience can help you reach a larger audience online

In a time where it is so easy to ignore irrelevant information and entertainment, trying to appeal to everyone can ensure you end up appealing to no-one in particular.

People are looking for news that is relevant to them and their individual interests. So, if I’m into commuter cycling, then I’m more likely to pick up on an article or video that speaks to that specifically than a generically titled article about cycling.

You may be concerned that, by targeting a smaller audience, your ultimate reach would be lower, but this is not the case. When you appeal to people directly, they’re more likely to share the news or article than if it is a generic piece. The specifically targeted piece says something about me, and what I believe in, so I will more likely share it.

“By trying to appeal to everyone, you will end up appealing to no-one”

This can hold true, even when it comes to public campaigns. For example, Coca Cola created a billboard that could only be understood by the 5% of people who are colourblind. Instead of being ignored by the 95%, this advert engaged their curiosity. For the first time, colour blind people had an advantage, as well as a good reason to talk about the campaign and show off their unique ability. 

By trying to appeal to everyone, you will end up appealing to no-one. A key principle when developing a campaign is that you identify a core inner-circle of people who are likely to respond to it and care about it. This takes courage and conviction. It means that in your messaging, in your creative concept, and in your targeting that you will exclude most of your potential audience, at least initially.

“Tighter targeting, bolder and more directed headlines, as well as content directed at an interested community is key”

We work with a concept called the 1>9>90 rule at Treeshake, which basically says that 1% of people create the content, that 9% share and 90% consume. So as a 1% content creator, you’re wasting your time trying to get people in the 90% to share. They simply won’t. In fact, the 90% only pay attention to content that is shared by someone they know. Someone in the 9% needs to share the content before they’ll pay attention to it.

Isn’t this true for you? For example, do you often find articles in your newsfeed on Facebook from news organisations that you don’t follow, on topics that you’re not directly interested in? And don’t you occasionally read those articles or watch those videos because of who shared it?

As an example, I’m not directly interested in architecture, but I trust my friend Erik to share good content. So when he shared a video about “Architecture that Heals”, I was compelled to click and watch it. If TED (or whoever else was promoting the content) tried to target me directly they would have failed to engage me. My interest was sparked because I knew the sharer. 

This is one of the paradoxes of digital content strategy. Tighter targeting, bolder and more directed headlines, as well as content directed at an interested community is key. Content is much more likely to spread further and faster than something specifically targeted at a more general audience. 

There is of course the risk of being too specific or obscure, but you should use your discretion.

The following three criteria can provide a useful guide to targeting:

1. Is the target audience small enough to reach, but big enough to influence the change you want - generally speaking around 10% of your total intended reach. (This tells you if your intended audience is too small or too big)

2. Is it possible to reach the entire interested target readership? (This tells you if your audience definition is specific enough)

3. Are they likely to share the piece? (This tells you if your piece is surprising or interesting enough for your target audience)

We don't need to reach every possible person we can, and this particular mistake is what creates the type of noise that people switch off from online.  Discipline in your targeting will lead to better creativity, better advertising, and better results. Don't be scared of excluding people, there's a far higher risk of being totally ignored. Focus. 

The Way We Measure Online Ads is Ruining the Internet

The most used metric for the reach of online ads, CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) is completely and utterly broken and sits at the foundation of possibly one of the biggest con jobs in the history of modern economics.

A journey into the world of Digital Marketing Metrics

It’s July 2014 and I’m shown into a board room on the top floor of One Coca-Cola Plaza in downtown Atlanta. I make an awkward joke about the ‘secret formula’ while I prepare to discuss the results of the four College Football Fancams we produced for Coke Zero the previous year.

The digital innovations team is excited. They took a chance on this guy with the weird South African accent and it turned out to be a massive success.

Thousands of fans spent an inordinate amount of time on the Coke Zero branded Fancams, they shared the content through their social networks, entered sweepstakes, watched the videos and did everything you want them to do in a successful digital campaign.  This is what you could call "deep engagement". We were thrilled! 

So, now it’s time to go big and the innovations team has organised a number of meetings with “different stakeholders to discuss our results and see how it could help them achieve their KPI’s”.

As a bit of background: My company, FanCam, captures super-high-res 360 degree images  of cities and stadiums that are so detailed that people can go and find a picture of themselves and tag it on Facebook. This is a screen-capture of a SuperBowl FanCam.

After showing them the cool pictures, I dive straight into the numbers:

“For our Auburn Fancam we generated 120 000 pageviews, 90% of which were unique users, 68% on their mobile devices and an average time on site of 5 minutes per user. We captured 5 000 email addresses and identified the top 20 influencers at the school. Our...”

“That’s not particularly good,” interrupts one of the smartest guys on the social team.

I’m caught completely off guard and there is palpable discomfort in the brief silence that follows.

“One tweet from @CocaCola delivers more impressions than that and it doesn’t cost us a cent.”

He goes on to explain that they recently ran a Twitter campaign that delivered a billion impressions.

I’m completely stumped and I suddenly feel very, very far away from home. I thought our results were good.  No, I know our results are good, but I have no comeback. A billion is a hell of a big number!

I deflect with a half decent, “I’d love to schedule a separate meeting so that the two of us can dive into the numbers a bit more,” and quickly put our Super Bowl Fancam on the projector to bring balance to the force, but my internal ‘non compute’ signs are flashing like crazy. I needed to discover the value of an impression to find out if I still had a business. 

What I learned was so surprising but yet made complete sense. I'll start with the basics and we'll go from there. 

Your Time Online is not Accounted For

To state the obvious, that free content you’re consuming every day, is paid for by advertisers. You’re not paying to see those holiday pics on Facebook because Facebook is getting paid by advertisers to display ads alongside them. Your news is free for the same reason and so is Pinterest and Twitter and Gmail and Bing and almost everything else. This is how the internet works.

Your attention is worth money and in exchange for it, you get subsidised content. It’s a great deal! 

Where it gets interesting however is how your attention is measured and paid for:

The metric of the day is the CPM (Cost Per Mille) or simply put, “cost per a thousand impressions served”. Google, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube and almost every other company providing you with free content is getting paid on a CPM basis.  It’s the metric that makes the internet free.

It’s also completely and utterly broken and sits at the foundation of possibly one of the biggest con jobs in the history of modern economics.

The CPM Delusion

In 2014, advertisers bought $50B worth of impressions in the United States alone. That’s enough money to pay the full tuition fees of half the country's college students.

There is a problem however, in late 2014 Google reported that 56% of the ads bought in this way were never displayed in front of human eyes. You need to read that again.: Never displayed in front of human eyes. Not “never seen”. NEVER SHOWN. 56%. 

How is this possible?

Well, the part about that CPM definition you (and many advertisers) missed, is the little word at the end: ‘served’. While it would be reasonable to assume that when you pay $20 CPM, you would reach a thousand people, that is not what ‘impressions served’ means. ‘Impressions served’ means, a server ran a program displaying your ad somewhere - not necessarily in front of a human.

It could be on a part of the page nobody ever visited or it could be on a screen in a dark room somewhere, but the assumption that you reached a 1 000 potential customers with your 20 bucks is very, very wrong.

But wait, it gets worse… The 44% of ‘good display ads’ in the aforementioned Google stat are described as “viewable ads”, but that doesn't mean they were actually viewed.  In fact, the IAB definition of  ‘viewable’ is that only half of that ad needed to be displayed on a screen for one second to count as an impression. That’s right: half of a banner ad appearing at the bottom of your screen for one second is deemed enough for you to have viewed that banner ad, read its message and pay attention to it. All while you’re actually busy paying attention to the content on the site.

So what does Google say about how many ads were displayed in full for 3 to 5 seconds? Well, Google doesn’t say anything. Convenient? If you’re selling banner ads at CPM, sure. So let’s do some napkin math here:

I spent $20 CPM and hoped to have 1 000 potential consumers pay attention to my ad. In my case, I’d like them to see my whole ad and have it in their field of view for 5 seconds, at least. Let’s look at the numbers

I pay for 1000 impressions (this is the 'M' in CPM).  Google says 56% never reached a screen. That leaves us with 44% of 1 000. That's 440 impressions left. Considering that an ad needed half of its pixels displayed for 1 second to get into this ‘good bucket’, let’s be conservative and assume 10% of these ‘viewable’ ads had the whole ad in front of a human for 5 seconds. That gives us 44 impressions. Let’s say you pay attention to 10% of the banner ads actually displayed on your screen for 5 seconds or longer (do you??). We all know it’s less, but we can give CPM the benefit of the doubt here... That leaves us with 4.4 actual meaningful "impressions". Okay, so rounded up that brings us to 5 effective impressions for $20.

That’s $4 per viewed banner ad or in other words $4 000 effective CPM. And here’s the kicker, you're paying $4 000 CPM for something that consumers actively hate (see ad blockers) and will almost always find itself alongside another banner ad, diminishing what value there was even further.

Measuring consumer attention on a CPM basis make absolutely no sense to anyone - except those selling it.

“If this is true,” I hear an imaginary executive in Madison Avenue ask, “why have display ad budgets been increasing year over year and why aren’t they showing any signs of slowing down, smart ass?”

Dear “soon to be unemployed executive,”, two reasons:

One -    Nobody is incentivised to rock the boat:

Brands? Nope. As long as that guy in the board room in Atlanta can tell his boss he delivered a BILLION impressions, he sounds like it’s worth having him around - and as long as Pepsi is reporting to deliver 2 Billion he has no incentive to report in any other way.

Agencies? Hell no! They earn commission on the $50B. Media sellers like Google, Facebook, Twitter? Not now, they’re busy printing CPM money.

Two -    There has been no alternative mainstream metric to measure attention in the digital context.

So what has changed?

The Accountants are coming.

Despite all the hype, big brand digital marketers have had difficulty linking views and impressions to actual sales. Upper funnel awareness and target market lift was used to justify buying banner ads on ESPN’s home page, without having to report on the ROI delivered. In fact, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi lost 5% market share the year they went fully digital in their advertising. (Long read on this: How the Mad Men Lost the Plot).

CFO’s had to stand back because they weren’t paid to understand the dark art of advertising, they were there to make the numbers work. Problem is, advertising has become a numbers game and the accountants are smarting up. The most asked question in marketing is becoming: what's the ROI of that? 

Against all wisdom, these accountants have been allowed to have Facebook and Twitter accounts and you can bet your bottom audited dollar there’s at least one CFO out there who has looked skeptically at the thousands of impressions delivered by that picture he shared off his calculator. Add their traditional distrust of CMO’s and the fact that Google admits 56% of the banner ads bought were never seen and you can be sure they’ll soon be asking some serious ROI questions in those budget allocation meetings.

Short version: If numbers people start asking serious questions about CPM, marketing people are going to struggle to justify their spend and will need to find more common sense metrics to do so.

There’s another player who is going to drive this change though - and it’s just as unlikely a hero as the accountants. Introducing good old print media. These guys are backed up in a corner, battered and desperate. They hate the impression economy, they just don’t know it by that name... yet!

How is it possible that a listicle on Buzzfeed has more value than a New York Times article? In the impression economy, where all impressions are equal and the time and quality of the attention is not measured, the listicle is worth more than the article.

In the attention economy however, the time on site, intensity of attention and the profile of the target audience have the potential to help the NY Times sell their attention at a higher rate.

The Financial Times (accountants + newspaper) have already made the switch. Since 2014, they’ve stopped selling ads on a CPM basis and have brought in CPH (cost per hour) as a more sensible replacement.

The sales pitch basically goes like this: “Who wants 500 hours of attention of CEO’s in Germany?” A number of brands signed up and the FT has reported that they’re really happy with the initial results. Why? Because it makes sense to smart advertisers.

Which brings us to an alternative metric to measure attention in the digital space.

Let me try and explain with a real world example to illustrate the difference between an impression and actual attention. 

My wife is going away for the weekend. I’m in charge of our 3 boys aged 8, 6 and a terrible 2. Just before she heads out of the door she reminds me that our son Jean needs to be at his cricket match at 9am, Tian’s medication has been measured out, and I should not ‘accidentally’ leave Petri at the park. 

“Are you paying attention?” she asks as I scroll through my Twitter feed on the phone.

In the impression economy I can answer with a resounding, confident and truthful, “Yes”. I have indeed registered her as an impression. I am definitely aware that she is there and that she is saying … something. In the real world, however, I’m about to get my ass kicked.

Humans don’t live in the impression economy, we live in the attention economy and my dearest wife knows this. She also knows (as should all advertisers) that she requires a certain type of attention for the communication to be effective.

“Have you been listening to all I have been saying?”, comes the follow up. In other words: Did you listen from start to finish (time) and did you do so without reading tweets (intensity)? This is how you measure attention in the real world. Not by registering an ‘impression’.

There is a third attention metric: knowing if you’re capturing the attention of the appropriate target audience, but I hope my wife never asks that question.

Marital bliss aside, how do we apply the fundamentals of the attention economy to digital advertising?

Well, we start by measuring attention in a way that makes sense.

Enter Dominic Good, advertising sales director at the Financial Times, explaining the sense behind their recent switch from CPM to CPH.

“While CPM values every impression the same, CPH uses time to measure value. The FT has shown through extensive testing that brand familiarity and recollection among readers increases significantly the longer an ad is in view. Adverts seen for five seconds or more on FT.com show up to 50% higher brand recall and familiarity than ads that are visible for a shorter period of time.”

He is echoed by Twitter co-founder and founder at Medium, Ev Williams: “We pay more attention to time spent reading than number of visitors at Medium, because in a world of infinite content—where there are a million shiny attention-grabbing objects a touch away and notifications coming in constantly—it’s meaningful when someone is actually spending time,”

“After all, for a currency to be valuable, it has to be scarce.”

And that is the beauty of the attention economy right there, scarcity.

See, you can copy, paste and serve as many banner ads as you like, but human attention is a limited resource. It’s a function of the number of humans in your target audience and the number of hours they have available to pay attention to your brand. It really is that simple.

Stats: www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/

The future

Imagine a world where we admit to the reality that attention is a limited, valuable and diminishing resource. This is a world where “attention holding” is more valuable than “attention grabbing”.

Where CMO’s focus on tactics that will allow them to capture as many of those minutes for as little money as possible. Where real world principles are used to judge the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns.

No more wasteful spending on ineffective, unseen banner ads.

No more slideshow websites to generate more impressions.

Instead, more money for innovation and high quality content and serious questions about what consumers care about (pay attention to).

By the way, we had our follow-up meeting with that smart Coca Cola team and ended up doing another 20 games for Coke Zero (even more successful than the first ones) but those couple of awkward minutes on the 29th floor of One Coca-Cola Plaza, put me on a path to try and understand the world of digital marketing metrics - and it’s been a wild ride.

This is the Moneyball of marketing and everything is about to change - again.

#CPMmustFall

---