Atlas® Institute

Digital Marketing
Insights

Behavior-Based Media Planning

By Young-Bean Song, Director of Atlas Institute Behavior-Based
Media Planning Generates
Real Results
New Media Planning Method Uses Actual Customer
Behavior to Identify the Best Media Opportunities Atlas has demonstrated the
Marketers have long depended on demographic and psychographic effectiveness of Behavior-Based
profiles when planning advertising campaigns. After profiling their target
Media Planning using its Site Finder
audience by factors such as age, income, gender or attitudinal profiles,
advertisers use various planning tools to find the media channels that planning tool. In a four-week test
will most effectively reach them. A plethora of simple and sophisticated comparing traditional planning with
statistics is available to help this process.
behavior-based planning, 75% of
Online media planning has followed this offline model, using demographic sites found using behavior-based
and psychographic profiles to select media. But while this type of
planning outperformed the average
targeting is an essential part of any marketing strategy, it has its
limitations. By definition, these profiles narrow the focus of marketing performance of all test sites. Further,
strategies, and by doing so, risk missing important groups of valuable the Cost per Primary Action (CPA)
customers. However, a new planning method called Behavior-Based
of Site Finder recommended sites
Media Planning (BBMP) takes a completely different approach, basing site
recommendations instead on where actual customers are on the Internet. was 37% lower than that of the
other test sites.
Birds of a Feather:
The Basics of Behavior-Based Media Planning
BBMP ignores traditional demographic and psychographic definitions.
Rather than defining a target group by age, gender or income, behavior-based profiles are created by
identifying users who have actually performed a desired action or set of actions. Thus, instead of
making best guesses as to who
is visiting your site, registering for
newsletters and sweepstakes,
playing games, or purchasing
Advertiser Data Behavior- Web-Wide Data
online, BBMP identifies users Customers that Based Media Sites where those
that have actually performed have taken actions Planning same customers
on website. are found.
such actions. BBMP then seeks
to identify the placements
across the Web that have the
highest concentrations of these
same target users.
Behavior-Based planning
identifies sites with
The logic behind BBMP is well the highest
summed up by the adage “birds concentration of
of a feather flock together.” customers that have
taken a desired
A site that attracts a high action on your site.
concentration of your target
users is probably attracting
Digital Marketing Insights | Behavior-Based Media Planning

others like them. It may be the demographic or psychographic makeup of the site, a synergy between
the site’s content and your product category, or even a new class of customers that have found a
unique utility for your product. Whatever that “something” is, BBMP tools highlight associations
between your target group and site populations. BBMP tools work because:
1) They identify the sites and placements that maximize the probability of reaching your current
customer base.
2) By finding sites and placements with high concentrations of your customers, they increase the
likelihood of finding other potential customers like them.
3) Rather than building a model of your customers, your customers are your model. No abstraction
step is necessary. This saves time and money.
A key advantage of BBMP tools is that they use the entire universe of online customers to base site
recommendations. BBMP tools also help advertisers find “diamonds in the rough”—smaller and less
obvious sites that never would have been considered for the buy. This is especially valuable
considering that the majority of third-party planning tools only report on the overall populations of the
largest sites.

Behavior-Based Media Planning tools can be used in innovative ways to help a variety of companies
with different marketing models and goals. An example is companies whose primary online focus is
branding (i.e., their customers spend significant amounts of time online, but primarily purchase offline).
Since many such companies don’t garner significant site activity to identify detailed behavior-based
target groups, they are using surveys and promotions to identify their customers online.

How Behavior-Based Media Planning Tools Work

Cookie Samples
BBMP tools require two pieces of data: Target Customer List:
from Different Sites
Cookies Identified
1) A list of target users as Buyers Site A Site B Site C

2) Site visitor sample populations Cookie #111 #222 #222 #111

By comparing these two pools of data, one can compare #222 #121 #555 #333
concentrations of target users across sites. The following #333 #456 #666 #444
example uses a target list of cookies that have
#444 #553 #517 #777
purchased from the advertiser.
#555 #767 #633 #100
In Figure 1, a target list includes seven cookies (#111, #666 #665 #323
#222,...#777) identified as buyers. Only one cookie from
#777 #789 #346
the sample of Site A’s users matches the target list while
#459
Site C has the most overlap with four matching cookies.
#637
At first glance, these results would support a decision to
#747
purchase media on Site C. But it’s not enough to know
#876
where most of your customers are online. Although Site C
has the highest raw number of buyers (4 of 12, or 33%), #929
Site B has the highest concentration of buyers (3 of 7, or Percent of Buyers in 1 of 5 3 of 7 4 of 12
43%). This is a subtle but very important distinction. Site Populations 20% 43% 33%

Unlike broadcast media such as television, where Figure 1: Finding target customers on other sites
advertisers reach all the viewers of a given program, a
typical online media buy only reaches a fraction of a site’s overall visitors. Therefore, to maximize the
probability of reaching target customers, advertisers should choose sites with the highest concentrations
(highest percentage of impressions) of those target customers (Site B in the above example).

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Digital Marketing Insights | Behavior-Based Media Planning

The Atlas Institute Proves Effectiveness of Behavior-Based Media Planning:

Atlas Site Finder Test
As one of the leading third-party ad serving companies, Atlas has amassed a wealth of anonymous
user samples from the top 600 publishers. By cross-referencing these samples with activity information
on advertiser websites, Atlas developed Atlas Site Finder, the industry’s first Behavior-Based Media
Planning tool.

The Site Finder test involved six leading online advertisers. Sites recommended by Site Finder were
compared against sites that were chosen by media planners using traditional planning techniques. In
each case, the sites recommended by Site Finder were not sites that typically would have been chosen
through demographic or psychographic planning. Each advertiser had identified a primary conversion
on their website (e.g., page views, registrations and sales) and Cost per Primary Action (CPA) goals to
evaluate the results of the campaign.

What We Learned
The test campaigns ran for approximately four weeks. Post-campaign ROI analysis revealed that
across advertisers, Cost per Primary Action (CPA) of Site Finder recommended sites was 37% lower
than the other test sites. Furthermore, three-quarters of the sites found with Site Finder out-performed
the average performance of all test sites. These successes led the advertisers involved in the test to
renew advertising on 89% of the Site Finder-recommended sites.

What This Means for Advertisers

Whether online or offline, demographic and psychographic targeting is an essential part of any
marketing strategy. However, Behavior-Based Media Planning tools can and should be used in
conjunction with traditional planning metrics to build more effective media plans. BBMP tools have
proven themselves to generate real results. In a world where media planners are looking for every edge
to produce innovative media plans that work, Behavior-Based Media Planning tools represent a new
generation of marketing intelligence that will become a standard part of the planner’s strategic arsenal.

About the Atlas Institute

The Atlas Institute is the research and education arm of Atlas, a provider of accountable marketing tools and expertise for
agencies, marketers, and publishers. The Institute publishes Digital Marketing Insights, a series of publications by Atlas senior
marketing analysts and digital marketing experts that help our customers improve their digital marketing effectiveness. Many of
these findings are also made available to the digital marketing industry at large. Each Digital Marketing Insight report is
designed to help marketers more successfully build value with their customers, throughout the customer lifecycle: from
awareness to acquisition and from retention to growth. The Atlas Institute also provides education in digital marketing to Atlas
customers and partners. To view a full listing of the Atlas Institute’s Digital Marketing Insights, please visit
www.AtlasSolutions.com/insights.

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