174. Mastering Programmatic Media Buying: Tips for Precision Audience Targeting

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If you'd like to learn more in this week's episode, we're gonna be exploring programmatic media buying with a particular focus on how to identify and target different audiences. Identifying your target audience is a great, but knowing how to actually target them is even more important. I see so many brands focus on user buss personas, but then they don't actually know what to do with them.

My guest today is Mary Ann Pruitt CEO at Mosaic Media. Let's get her on now to talk us through it all.

Hi, Mary Ann. Thanks for joining me today.

Would you mind to just introducing yourself?

Give us a bit of your background and how you've got to where you are today?

Yeah, Thanks. Will for having me on. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. We I'm with Mosaic Media. We are a media agency that works directly with brands, works with agencies to provide media strategy and really go the extra mile of figuring out today's world and landscape of media. It's not the easiest space to be in meaning. It's very specialised in today's world.

So yeah, that's what I do all elements. I've been doing media for over 25 years. I feel like the old lady in the room at times now, even though I still think I'm young. But you know, others look at me like, No, that's not the case. So I love to help and bring my experience to the table and help others with what they're doing for their media strategies. Awesome.

So, yeah, I guess with these days, with the on the media side of things, how do you get customers clicking?

Yeah, a key piece for us. What we do is individual persona targeting. So it's precise targeting using programmatic tools.

A I, I like to say, human driven A I that is backed by people that are experts in this and our whole team of experts that are going after where your customers are, so we help brands, and how do we get customers clicking in that we help brands.

We help ad agencies deliver that for the brands that they're working with as precise targeting down to an individual home, down to an individual street, down to an individual target and behaviours that we're starting to go after. That's how we get customers clicking. And it's kind of funny because in our world we literally get customers or customers to click.

So first, before we dive into the persona stuff. Just wanna talk a bit about programmatic. To be honest, it's not something I understand very well. I very quickly decided to remove myself from the advertising side of marketing and focus very much on on CRO and customer research user behaviour on site. So if you could give us yeah, I guess a bit of an overview of programmatic, Absolutely.

Because it can be very confusing. It is very specialised in today's world.

Well, we work with people like you all the time that are on the research side. And here's the research. Here's the data.

This is what it's telling us, and then where are our customers?

How do we go get them?

And where are they?

So with that, what programmatic is. So when I started in media, you had very few options of where you could put your ads.

Actually, I started in media before there were websites for you to put your ads on. The websites were there, but we weren't generating revenue off the websites yet. It was very new. And so you were at a space of television, radio, print and outdoor. That's pretty much all you had.

And those were That's easy to That's easy to buy, right?

It's easier to buy. I'm not saying that strategy for that is easy. I'm saying the buying power of it is easy. I call a rep, I get a rate card. I place the I put a strategy together. I place it with an insertion order. We still to this day do this. What programmatic did was take it to now.

OK, let's elevate this to another level where it became an automated system of bidding.

So now, even in some of these traditional platforms, we are able to we've been testing it for a little while now in some traditional platforms to be able to actually programmatically bid the ads we but also in nontraditional, so on digital formats. So this is outside of your social. This is outside. Google is a form of programmatic, but it's one data set.

You have thousands of datasets and millions of data sets out there that you're looking at targeting and going after. So what programmatic does is that we have the tools to come in and automate it automatically.

An automated system to bid for the individual impression of the customer that we're trying to go after so I can look at it and say, OK, no longer am I just looking at a demographic of women 25 to 54?

That's what I'm trying to go after. I am looking for a 35 year old woman who is a gardener who has multiple Children who drives an SUV. I know more behaviours about her. She lives in this certain area, and that's how I go after targeting. And then I bid on that impression of who she is.

OK, so this is very confusing. I try to make it and actually, to be honest, I think that a lot of people try to make it confusing. I try to make it as simple as possible. It is a bidding system. You have to have tools. You have to have things to be able to automatically and to be able to use the automated system and use the bidding system.

But that's when good partners come in. I will say one warning. Look for good partners that have direct seats that are able to do. We can get into all of that that are able to do the bid directly, as opposed to anything diluted on your impressions. You want to make sure that you have somebody who can go directly to it and be able to get those impressions.

Yeah, OK, so I guess on the could you tell us more about the strategy side?

Is there a particular time that you would want to use programmatic over anything else?

So what I like to talk about, too, is for the first time in the world's history, we have five working generations with a six on its way, and we have to look at how I am reaching the 80 year old man who is still working 80 year old woman that is still possibly working or volunteering or still very active.

Our older generation is more active than ever, and studies are showing us that they're not retiring. They are on their second or third or fourth careers where they're not retiring to the 16 year old. That's working. That has an income to spend as well. So each platform of media has a strength in reaching who our target audience is. So we have to go back to as marketers.

We have to look at an audience first approach.

Who is the audience that we're trying to reach and be very specific in that audience, and then go see where they are best, right?

Where are they best suited?

Programmatic is gonna have a space for everybody. Most people are on the Internet at some point, or most people are streaming something, whether it the pandemic pushed us full force into digital consumption even more than we already were. And so we are already over consuming in that area.

So we just have to we have to think through OK, where is my audience?

Who is my audience?

And then let me go find where the impressions are of that audience.

Yeah, and I mean, I think you make it sound quite easy in that it sounds like I can fight, find a partner and say, Here's my audience Set up that targeting and I guess some maximum bids or whatever and it just does its thing. How involved is because at the start you mentioned human a human driven, something human driven. A I Yeah.

So how big of an impact does the human factor come into it?

And I guess, as part of that look, if you're a smaller brand, can you get away with pro doing programmatic and just kind of letting it do its thing?

And then are there benefits, maybe at a later stage, to being a bit more involved in it?

And, yeah, so I think that for anybody, any size, they need to be looking at programmatic. What I will warn against is a set it and forget it model. You want to find a partner that is optimising daily, and here's there's multiple reasons why, but you want to make sure that you have brand protections that you are showing up on websites that are good for your brand.

Not bad for your brand or websites that are that are legitimate. There are a lot of bought sites and then you can.

Oh, I got 10 million impressions. Great.

Well, 9 million of them were bought, and that's not gonna do any good for the budget that you're spending. So it's really important to find that partner who is a direct seat on a demand side platform. A demand side platform is the bidding process that you would go into and there's multiple demand side platforms.

But you want to find a partner that's operating directly with one and operating in that system because they're gonna be doing. They're doing the professionalism on the back end. They're looking at the optimisations. They have the direct access. Just don't be scared to use a partner. It's OK. It probably actually will not cost you more money or minimal cost at that. Don't be scared.

If you have tiny budgets, it's OK to reach out to partners with it. Don't be scared if you have huge budgets. It's something that we all should be thinking about and starting to put into our media mix. Programmatic targeting is something that all of us need to be thinking about and putting into it.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned that like it shouldn't cost you much more using a partner. So the way I look at it and in fact, so I came up with this phrase the other day. Let's make sure I got it right, because it's still new.

So this is CRO specific, right?

So you don't need Let me get this right. You don't need a full time person who does a bit of CRO you need. You need a dedicated CRO person to do some work for you exactly.

Slightly differently today, but full time doing some CRO you need AC RO person doing some of it for you, right?

Just an expert doing it right and it's the same.

It's the same with a lot of channels, right?

So often a brands approach me and they're like, Oh, we do P PC agency, a meta agency. Whatever. All these other things email SCO always gets requested. And yet I probably get an equal number of occasions when I'm speaking to a brand and they say, Oh, our our digital man manager handles CRO.

Yeah, hang on.

Yeah, we're in the and here's at the end of the day, we should all be coming together and working together on it. We should be having AC RO looking at data, looking at the research, looking at everything for my media plans and my strategies to be carried out correctly and partnership with CR OS is very important for that.

And I think overall, we have an out outlined goal for where we're headed, right?

Every marketing department, everybody has where their goals wanna be. They should be working and collaboratively together. Like you said, You just have a professional CRO do a little bit for you and it the return on investment is going to be there.

Same thing, Same same for media, right?

It's especially if you're a smaller company because smaller companies tend to be more worried about.

Well, can I afford to pay an agency to run this this account?

Well, the way of thinking about it is if you don't pay an expert agency to do this as efficiently as they can, you're gonna pay the same if not more, for someone to do it part time. Probably not very well exactly. And I can't tell you how many times, if so for us we work with the smallest of smallest mom and pops very small brands to the multi Fortune 500 Fortune 100.

We manage a lot of media and it's a it's a wide range.

And why do we do that?

Because first, I'm a soft spot for a small business. I think that's a driver of the economy. I love that, but also because we are very good at what we do.

So you as a small brand, why would you not want someone who is working with the largest of large brands, right?

Why would you not want that?

You wouldn't want that. And it really is not gonna cost you much more. And I can't tell you how many times at all levels, even the highest of high levels where an executive comes to us and says, I've been doing this myself or I've been doing this. We've had Fortune five hundreds come to us where the CMO is like, Yeah, I started doing P PC.

I was doing the P PC side because I could just do it and I knew it because that's what my background was. But they're not able to be the best CMO that they could be right, and that's where it's at and the same thing. Small business owners.

I can't tell you how many times small business owners are like, Yeah, I did the YouTube videos to figure out how to do YouTube than I did. I don't think that's great that you have the knowledge, your value, your time value as an individual, as an entrepreneur, as an executive is high. So look at that.

It's OK to outsource certain things while you can then manage that you can then oversee that you can then see OK, these are the things that I'm getting, and the results are most likely gonna be better. We do a lot in the P PC space that happens a tonne where people come to us and they're like, OK, I need paid search. I need this side of it.

I've been doing it myself, and it's funny because we could get in there and we just as experts, we get in there and all of a sudden they're like, Wow, we've never had this many leads because we're looking at it. We are looking at it with a different view than you are. We do this all day long and then Now we go.

OK, here's your P. PC.

What other tactics on top of it do you maybe need top funnels so that they go you?

So it's a full. It's a full funnel approach that we often get lost in. We get very lost in, and that's yeah, you take a different approach to it. You're viewing things from the outside so you can see things the business owners don't.

You've got the experience from other clients, doesn't even have to be competitors, right?

It's 11 thing that annoys me slightly is when it's oh, do you have experience in this industry?

It's well, no, maybe not. Or maybe a little bit, but it doesn't really matter because the approach is the same and we still take these learnings. But what I find interesting is on the agency side.

So when I started my agency, some of the advice I got was as soon as you can afford it, hire someone to do the work right, hire someone to do the client work and shift yourself off to run the business. But a lot of advice for DC brands Big C brands seems to be the opposite.

Seems to be like Learn this like do it yourself for as long as you can and only when necessary. Bring someone in.

Yeah, I mean and your efficiencies are not there. You actually need to be looking at the bottom line and the operations of the company so that when you are having somebody, when you are doing your P PC when you are trying to do your placement when you're the one talking to all the TV and radio reps when you're the one doing all this, that's our words.

In a day, no wonder you're exhausted. No wonder you're worn out and it's OK he to have an expert help you in that You understand it. That's great. So now work in the strategy with them work and collaborate together. Now we are in the world of collaboration. Let's find media is specialised Now this is an expertise.

This is not something that you can just phone in and people I It's interesting to me. I will hear agencies. I will hear others say, Well, programmatic. I can just go through my TV vendor for programmatic. Great Try that. That's a deleted C PM. That's not a that's not the best way to spend your money. You actually want to have something more precise, more direct, something that's that direct seat.

We can't just We sit on the sidelines and we're like, Oh, yeah, I'll go. I'll phone it in and get it done.

Well, I'm not getting results.

Well, I wonder why I don't have an act for guiding and steering the ships.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to move on to the audience side because you mentioned that a lot at the start. So how and I know a lot of brands do this wrong because I've experienced it myself when I was in house.

How do you build out those target audiences?

How do you actually with without going to a market research company and spending $50,000 on a six month project, which these days could be out of date by the time it's launched?

How how do you?

How can you quickly go and identify, even if it's just a handful of key audiences?

So what's really important here?

It's that oftentimes the audience structure and the audience analysis is overanalyzed or over complicated, and what you really should do is you actually probably do know your audience. You just need to take a step back and look, look at what the data is that you do have.

What data do you currently have?

Who's if Let's say you're a brick and mortar who's coming in your doors?

Take note of that. You watch. If you're an owner of a business or you're manager of a business, go to one of your storefronts and stand there for a day and just take note. Stand there for an hour and just take note of who's coming in.

Who's there, right?

If you've got stores, you could literally give someone. You could give everyone a $5 discount to fill in a quick questionnaire. Exactly. So it's the first, the exact It's the first party data that you can collect for you, then to analyse who your customer is and who your ideal customer is.

So if you can look at it and you can say OK, I know that this is who I want to have as my customer. Then I'm gonna go. I'm gonna look at it in this direction, and I'm gonna say OK, but I'm seeing a lot of men between this age group come in. They're buying this specific product.

OK, maybe this is an area for me to end an audience that I need to concentrate on. You're gonna have. It's OK to have more than one. That's another thing. Don't be scared of more than one audience. It's OK. Just don't try to target them all the same. So have a plan for each one. If you're gonna have more than one audience, it's OK to target them separately. It's OK.

That doesn't mean I. I know. Right away people would be like, Oh, my budget can't afford it. My budget. I can't go that route. Not necessarily you, actually, if you're doing this strategically and correctly, OK, you have this audience over here in this audience, you may have to prioritise your audiences to target them, but that's OK and that's how you can look at it.

Collecting first party data is something that is oftentimes minimalized and it's gonna be so crucial as time goes on. And as things start to evolve in the space that we're collecting information about our customers and frankly, customers are fine to give the information they the rewards that you with that certain amounts of information. They're fine with it. They get it, they understand it and they're fine.

But if you start asking them, what's your date of birth?

What's your address?

Your phone number?

Email. That's when they say, No, I'm done here. We'll go.

But if you're asking them, what would you mind like?

What do you do?

Maybe an age bracket, but also what are you looking for?

Why are you looking for it?

What are you trying to achieve with the products?

The sort of things we do with customer interviews and think about it.

So, Kroger. I like to use Kruger as an example, Um, and they are one of those that have done a phenomenal job of collecting as much information on our customers as possible. But then they use the information to benefit the customer.

The customer doesn't even feel like they're getting they They have anything that they're giving any information about themselves off because they've got their sheet of coupons either digitally or in the mail. That's like, Oh, yeah, these are the items that I buy, and a lot of times they're like, That's creepy. Those are the items that I buy.

But you know what?

I got $2 off. I don't care. So they they're collecting the information on their customer, but the customer actually values it. So you have to find ways to, like you said, a $5 off or a percentage off. Not always a credit card. Not always things like that. Like you're wanting to get certain amounts of information so that you can estimate and get and build out who your audience is.

You as business owners and as managers, and as as the chief executives do understand where your customer is and where you probably need to go, we oftentimes just don't listen to our intuition on it. We often time, don't take it external approach and look at it and say, OK, this is where we wanna go.

And if you've been in sales and if you've been doing anything, you're gonna go, you know what?

When we work with this type of customer, it works the best. This is where we close sales the most, and that's where you need to be concentrating on and shift, and that can change and evolves. You may tap out a market or you may look at something and go.

You know what?

Two years ago, this target audience worked really well for us. I'm having to adjust because now this target audience is working better for us. That's OK. We'll be afraid of it. You can think about the way people build up audiences with demographics.

Right?

Which was we target 18 to 24 year olds.

Well, six years later, your 18 to 24 year olds are very different people. Exactly. And it gets into the generational differences of today. I do a lot of teaching on generational differences and the difference of each generation, but the habits of each generation and how that affects our marketing and our sales cycles. And in reality, we have lump summed demographics altogether, and you're spot on where me and in my forties.

I'm thinking that a 30 year old, actually 35 year old, has the same experience as I do.

No, they don't. That's a different life. It's a different part of life they're in. They experience different things as Children than I did. They experience different things as adults than I did. So it's We get caught and like you said. You're 18 to 24 year old, six year later. Wait a minute. That 24 year old at the end of that spectrum is now 30. They're not 24 anymore.

So did they evolve with you?

Did they go with you?

Do you need to adjust your sales cycle?

Do you need to adjust your target audience?

Also, the issue with certain demographics. So there's a, I guess, a meme that's gone around a few times, probably in the UK. I'm not sure it's basically it's got now. King Charles. I'm sure it was when he was Prince Charles and it's got Ozzie. Ozzie Osborne.

OK, right?

And it's the whole thing is about these people fit in the same user persona based on what is probably quite a normal company user persona that they go through. And they're like, Well, actually, these people are completely different. They're probably gonna react to very different products, very different types of marketing as well.

So yeah, I've never, never really got the point of targeting people like that. It's I'm I just wanna Yeah, at a basic level. I wanna target people who like cooking.

Yeah, exactly. They maybe a little bit, maybe based on experience level and a few other things. But you can't target people who are in a in an age range for cooking because it's it's not a relevant data Exactly, and thinking that they're gonna be the same way where the age range comes in is mostly on how they're consuming the media.

So if I'm looking at targeting people who are into cooking, OK, that's a wide age range, right?

That's a very wide age range and where I'm gonna go. So if I look at it and say, OK, I'm gonna pick out a couple age sectors to target them to go in that direction. But I the common thread that I have is that they like to cook. That's what they like to do. That's their common threat. That's who I'm targeting with. My whatever it is that I whatever product, whatever.

If it's a new knife set, if it's a new whatever you new utensil new tool, I'm going to target the behaviour more than I am saying I'm gonna target the 65 year old man that we can't think in this mindset because you're spot on and I love that analogy of King Charles and Ozzie Osborne.

They're the same demographic, But you really think that you're gonna reach them with the same product or they they have the same interest in that product?

No. And everybody is individual. And frankly, as we get further and further down the age range, the more that starts to change the more that starts to adjust because our generations long gone, in my opinion, and some people find it controversial when I say this. But long gone are the ranges of generations to be 18 to 20 years. We're talking five year windows that are more reality.

Based on that, the younger we get millennials really started it because we had millennials. Technically, I'm a millennial. In the first year of a millennial, I feel more like a Gen Xer.

But technically I'm a millennial, right?

And why is that?

Because I have traits of a Gen X, but I also have traces of a millennial. But I remember before the Internet I understand that younger millennials don't remember before the Internet. They don't understand that.

So these are the things that you have to think when you're building your audience How do you How do I build this audience?

What they are. And frankly, the behaviour side of it is what we should be concentrating on more than anything on the demographic side of Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So how you mentioned, obviously, Target targeting different media for different audiences.

How do you build out that strategy?

Do you?

Obviously you I know you can find the data on which audiences are on which media.

You know what?

Going back to demographics.

Right?

And sort of Where are the older audiences?

But in terms of a media strategy, I guess.

How do you need to determine where to start first or can or can you just You really need to?

Yeah. Wait.

Where?

First find a partner in this?

I really do think that this is important. Like I said, it's not gonna cost you extra money in this space. Find a partner to help you walk down this journey. But you start with your audience and the behaviours of your audience before you go to the demographic of your audience. So we're gonna start with the audience side of it.

What are the behaviours that we're wanting to target and then I'm gonna go see where the impressions are for that behaviour. So am I looking to see Because we have all these tools, we have all these tools that are gonna tell us, OK, actually streaming television. So connect to TV. That's where this behaviour is. That's where they are. This is what they're targeting. I'm gonna go back to the cooking example.

They're watching certain food networks. They're watching certain things along those lines and cooking shows.

OK, that's where where they are or whatever it is, if it's pet supplies. If it I'm looking for pet owners. I'm looking for individuals that are gonna buy pet food or pet toys. So there's all these different ranges right of what you're looking for. But the behaviour is what you want to start with and then go and see.

OK, where can I buy that impression?

Where is the I most?

Is it streaming?

Is it radio?

Is it television?

A lot of times it's gonna be on. There's gonna be a portion of digital. There's gonna be some form of programmatic targeting because we can target so precisely on that behaviour. And that's in the UK. That's in the states. That's all over the world that we have the opportunity now to precisely target.

Yeah, So I suppose, Yeah.

There's certain media where you can be super specific, right?

So you mentioned streaming. If there is the food network, then that's probably a pretty good point.

You know, place to start with your advertising. If your if your product is is cooking and food related, there's gonna be magazines, probably radio shows. There'll be websites where you can buy placements, but you're gonna I would look at that programmatic betting if you're gonna buy websites because that's where you're gonna end up on those websites and you're gonna get the best price.

And the best cost is programmatically did the behaviour of it to show up on those websites because on the back end and we do this all all over the world is we're looking at that behaviour and we're going to check it and say OK, yes. That website is a good that that website is a good fit.

That's where we wanna be, as opposed to calling the website and getting a rate card and doing those things programmatically it, how you want to bid it and how you wanna go after it.

I mean, it's always more expensive, I think. When I worked for a company in the in kind of the publishing space and we had some sort of deal with one of the publishing companies that we would spend a certain amount with them, as as basically as part of the deal of getting their content on our platform, which was fine.

We were also with them marketing literally to their audience, which is kind of a weird deal. I get that they did the deal so that they could get more money from us, but it also meant we were advertising to their customers directly.

Thought it was a bit strange, but there's some of their websites were on a some sort of advertising network, but I can't remember if it was something that they had built and they had separate their own thing or whether it was powered externally. But we could do pro essentially programmatic. And there are other brands which weren't which.

Yeah, it was a rate card. Here is the cost of a placement. Not it's not AC, PM or anything. It's just two grand, and you can be on this placement on all the article pages. There is a difference with that, I will say, for the most part, not completely yet. But for the most part, we can programmatically bid it with our tools.

For the most part, there are some websites that you can't but a lot now have the access that we can bid it in that manner. So it's a way of being able after it.

Do they tend to be like older legacy sites that don't have the programmatic side once they have not to be to that space?

Yeah, just fall behind. And we should maybe some traditional publishers who just that's been their model. It worked for them for years and they've stuck with it.

But most, most traditional publishers have evolved to it now because it's revenue for them.

Right, And that's why I think we will get to a point where traditional radio traditional television will also get to this point, and we're already starting to look at that. So I think it's it's also probably revenue without the cost involved of selling. You don't have to have the account reps on the other side selling it anymore because you're automatically bidding it.

Yeah, So that. And that's why we find television and radio audio and vendors start to provide programmatic.

Well, they're diluted in their CP MS. There's so much overhead that goes into it. And so that's where you want to make sure that you have this direct seat type of partnership that you can work with.

Yeah, Yeah.

What else?

I think we've gone through my questions. It must be something else we can talk about real day again and programmatic.

What?

What about the biggest mistakes brands can make with programmatic apart or even agencies?

So, apart from not working with a partner not working directly, you've mentioned that already.

Um, what are the big mistakes?

So let's say maybe you audit an account for a client who is currently doing it, whether it's in house or an agency.

What are some of the mistakes you see?

So the number one thing we do a lot of audits and I also offer to podcast audiences. When you hear me on a a podcast, we will. We offer an audit out of the gate of a conversation out of what are you doing currently and how we can kind of help redirect your path or tell you're on the right path and you're good. So we always offer that to audiences.

But the number one mistake, because we do a lot of this. The number one mistake is not having brand protection on and having a vendor doing your programmatic, and it's a set it and forget it. And there's no brand protection. So what I mean by that is I can't tell you how many times we take over and you're showing up on adult websites.

You shouldn't be and it's not or or there's no exclusion list. There's and that happens a lot in this space where it's you've trusted somebody with the budget and they just place it and or they're on the sites that have box, as opposed to actually quality CP MS and buying you something that is a true impression. So those are the key.

That's the number one mistake that I see other, and it's very common. We take those over agencies, um, direct a brand. We take it over, we see those things all the time. What other things I would see is that you're not looking at your audience as specifically enough. You're going too broad on your demographic as opposed to behaviours that you could be targeting.

Look, and it's OK to test. I personally love to be able to say, OK, let's test this market and this Geo, with this brand within this your target persona that you're looking at, test it. It's OK to test things. It's OK for you to look and test a new audience. Get to know the audience so well.

So that's the other piece of it is going too broad because a lot of times brands go well. Everybody can buy our product, yes, but there is a sweet spot client for you. There is a sweet spot customer, and it's finding that sweet spot customer so that then you can target it precisely. But it's also the messaging as well. 0 100%.

It's not just who is our audience?

How do we put an ad in front of them?

It's who is our audience.

How do we put the right ad in front of them?

Exactly. It's the customer experience. So that's how I really like to talk about it is when the when a brand comes before a customer in an ad placement. They are going to have an experience with your ad.

What does that look like?

How are they consuming that information?

How are they going to receive that information?

In today's world, we have so many different targeting capabilities and behaviours. There's so many different things, from medical conditions to habits and and certain hobbies. We have so many different ways of doing it. So I need to make sure that for as marketers, we have to make sure that we're delivering a message that audience wants to hear. Not a different audience.

Yeah, yeah, it's That actually leads quite well into the little comment I wanna make. It also relates to your brand protection stuff. I remember reading a case study quite a few years ago Now Must be, I reckon, six or 78 years ago about a guy who he ran A. I think it was like a food delivery website. I think a little bit like just eat. I just eat.

So I think it was more like an ordering website, and then the restaurant fulfilled it, and he found he worked out that his most profitable advertising was on a porn network, and he said it worked fantastically. I think I can't remember why he started doing it. It was only a small business, so he wasn't too worried about brand protection. But he tested out and he's He worked out.

He was putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time.

The message was and who?

His audience. He ended up discovering who the audience was and that at the end of the day is we want to know who our audience is. We have to, and this is with anything that you do in any type of brand, any type of service that you're providing. You have to know the audience.

Let's go down that path of OK, what are their behaviours and what?

So let's say let's go to the pet food analogy or the pet toys.

If I'm a pet owner, what other behaviours do I have that maybe I can layer on to that?

That I can then also target this individual that makes that even more my sweet spot in audience that I want to go after?

Yeah, I mean, maybe I'm maybe there's a lot of different things.

Like, Do I like the outdoors?

Am I very active?

And I have a pet.

OK, that's an audience that I'm gonna go after. So I want to go after those behaviours and just get to know them even more.

Well, also cleaning if you got if you got a pet, Certain dogs. I know my dog. Definitely.

You got to clean a lot, right?

He sheds hair everywhere. So if I was a product specifically designed for cleaning up shedded dog's hair would want to get it on various cleaning websites and the animal websites, you know and you want to look at. So the in programmatic the tactics that you can utilise. You have your streaming television C, TV, OT. You have your streaming audio, but you also have display.

You also have native advertising because here's the thing is that we collect data. There are groups of people that are our customers right, and they have behaviours. There's more than one pet owner in the world. There's more than one pet owner in your neighbourhood that you're trying to target right cleaning supplies, various things.

They aren't necessarily reading a cleaning article But maybe they have other habits that they have that they are reading. So it's where they are. That's what programmatic is that they are tracking them as the individual. Yes.

Did they search how to get dog hair off the couch?

Sure, but then what other articles are they going after?

And we're tracking that individual. We're tracking what they are doing and the behaviour in which they go after. And so that's what's important is not just going directly to a site, not just going there. It's tracking and following our customer where they're going, the native advertising showing up in an article as if you're part of the article. That's a great way we programmatically did that. That's a great way of doing it.

And there are so many different ways of co. I tell people this all the time, but when we usually do that first initial meeting of getting to know you and outlining OK, this is what you're doing.

Well, we would advise some of these things and we'll we'll we're there to help, or however you want to handle or hand it back over to you.

And when I look at it and It's funny because I tell people all the time you're looking where the audience is, and you're more thinking in that manner as opposed to the O, who you're looking where they are, you're not looking at who they are, and that's where we have to get back into.

Is the behaviours in which who they are and how it's got to be their experience?

They've got to consume it in that manner.

Yeah, I think that's probably a really good point to end it on.

Yeah, there. So but two final questions before we wrap up.

If you could pick the brains of anyone in the E-commerce world, who would it be?

So I this I guess this could be controversial. I don't know. I get the first person I think of who I actually kind of think started. The E-commerce world is Jeff Bezos, and that's where I would want to pick his brain of being like what made you wake up one day and go books online is what I'm gonna sell and then evolve it to what it is today. Like go.

How did that happen?

Yeah, the the very first part of that would be interesting.

Like why Books?

Why books?

Why did you?

And that's where my brain goes like, Why did you start there?

But then it I mean the evolution of it makes sense.

But why did you start there?

What made you go down that path?

But I'm also I love entrepreneurship, and I love to talk to entrepreneurs. And I love and we do a lot in the E-commerce space like we do a lot in the Amazon space. So it's I love to pick people's brains, but he's like the one that I think of because he he really kind of thought of it all. Like right out of the gate of the Internet is fairly new.

He's one of the dot coms that survived. Think about it early 2000, what coms flopped. They had value on them. That was false value. And he survived. And not only did he survive, he survived.

So yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, And finally, if you one final piece of advice for brands is really, truly get to know your audience not to beat a dead horse on it, but get to know your audience and really think about that. But also don't be scared in finding a partner to work with.

Reach out, do your research. Find somebody that you connect with. It's OK to ask hard questions. It's OK to make changes. It's OK to do those things. Don't be scared to think about.

OK, I have to do this all myself. You really don't. And it actually will probably relieve the pressure off of you to find somebody to help be on that expertise so that you can actually go generate new revenue because your brain is free to think of other things and your brain is free to think about operating your company. So that's my biggest advice to anybody. That's an entrepreneur. I'm a multi entrepreneur.

I am multiple businesses. I've started multiple businesses. Media is my love and my passion and what I do the most. But that is where I talk to entrepreneurs all the time. Know your value. Know your value as the entrepreneur know your value as the executive, whether you own the company or not.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's great. Awesome. Thank you so much.

What's the best way of getting in touch with you?

Yeah. So people can find me on Twitter at media maps. Or you can find me on LinkedIn, Mary Ann Pruitt and I offer this to anybody listening. If you want to have a conversation and just jump on a call for free, you can reach me directly at mosaic dot agency forward slash contact That goes directly to my email. That's mosaic dot agency forward slash contact. Awesome. All right. Thanks so much, Mary Ann.

Thank you. Demographic base for sign is is gonna be one of the biggest waste of time and resource there is. I think it doesn't really matter how old someone is, whether they've got kids or what their job is.

If you're a fashion brand, a jewellery brand, a gaming brand, what does this information really do for you?

What you want are interest based personas. Persona is based on information that tells you what people are interested in. So you know what sort of ads they might respond to where they're hanging out so you can target them with the right message in the right place. If you'd like to hear more from Mary Ann, you can find her on LinkedIn.

Any other podcast questions, feedback or guest requests?

Please send them over to will at customs who click dot com or DM me on LinkedIn.

Next up, I've got Kurt Ulster joining me. We're gonna be talking about Shopify themes, apps and other essentials of the Shopify store, but until then, keep those customers clicking.