Viant adds purchase-based targeting for CPG ads

Viant, the Meredith Corporation-owned ad tech company, is out with additional ways that CPG (consumer packaged goods) advertisers can target consumers through learning their purchase patterns.

The company’s solutions are powered by its newly expanded partnership with CPG-focused market research company IRI, combined with Viant’s own 250 million registered users. Viant also said it is the first ad tech firm to partner with specialty beverage retailer BevMo! for its data on aggregate purchase cycles.

Viant’s Sales Tactic Optimization is not new, but it is now available for the first time for CPG, and on a weekly basis rather than monthly or less frequently. Employed previously by Viant for other verticals like autos, it provides advertisers with weekly aggregate data on actual store visits and in-store sales so campaigns can be modified as they run, with data about the top-selling products.

The ad targeting can be conducted at a household level, based on past purchase behavior. Households have been identified via cross-matching of devices and loyalty card-based purchase data through persistent identifiers like emails, and then they are anonymized and grouped into segments by purchase patterns, geography or other factors.

Purchase Cycle Targeting, which is new, takes into account the different repurchase cycles for, say, cereal compared to laundry detergent.

A Viant study last year found that product repurchases can be increased by more than 26 times if the ad messages are timed to the week before a given repurchase cycle, instead of earlier in the cycle.

For an example of how this enhanced targeting works, Viant CMO Jon Schulz told me via email, suppose an advertiser wants to sell a new snack. There’s no purchase history to draw on, so they target such segments as individuals who bought salty snacks in the last 60 days, fans of college football and consumers in the Northeast and Southeast.

As the ad campaign runs, the purchase data shows it is getting good sales results from college football fans in the Southeast, so the advertiser refocuses the budget to that market. The targeting is by household.

If the product being advertised has a clear repurchase cycle, such as laundry detergent, Purchase Cycle Targeting will tell the marketer when to send the ads so they’re delivered the week before the consumer is expected to stock up again.

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About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.