By Carolyn Bollaci - Country Manager Australia and New Zealand, MediaMind

Data driven advertising is becoming big news as word spreads that it regularly smashes the campaign results of non-data driven campaigns, often by 20 percent or more. As we fast slide towards a world where all media is digital media - and print more a tantalising degustation to digital's main courses, spliced across the multiple platforms of the web, mobile, tablet, TV and console - data is set to become as important as media itself in media buying decisions. Data underpins digital and when used intelligently, as we're only just beginning to do, it has the power to significantly sharpen campaign performance and results across every type of digital campaign, from video to display to search.

Of course, many roadblocks inhibit both brands and advertisers from fully capitalising on the rivers of data currently accumulating to help better shape and direct better ads to the individuals most likely to respond to them. Limited access to transparent third party data is one most of us point to.

Advertisers and agencies also need to be able to easily and in real time mesh their own first party data with third party data as part of buying media through exchanges. Currently it is mainly advertisers' first party data that is behind the data-driven digital advertising campaigns we see yielding impressive results. It is not a given that more open access to third party publisher's data will lift campaign results even further but it will remove some current blind-spots and give us greater confidence that our data is as sharp as it can be to drive better ad performance.

Also, we all need more ad inventory to go through exchanges or trading desks. Fears that exchanges will commoditise ad inventory will not be resolved by holding back perceived premium inventory and the rich data that goes with it. Quality inventory that provides value to advertisers will rise in value just as surely as inventory that is more about reach and frequency might not.

The shift to data driven marketing will have a major impact on our industry. It will change how media inventory is made available and purchased, and where ads are placed and before which niche audiences. It will even impact on the types of ads we as an industry produce, as data-driven campaigns enable us to dynamically develop and serve multiple creative executions to more effectively reach far more granular audience sub-groups. It will also change what we come to accept as a successful advertising campaign, and the type of skill sets we need to attract into our industry. Math whizzes will need to be tunnelled to a world that traditionally lured mostly creative types, and we will need our tertiary institutions to do their bit in training them before they do.

Around the world, the wheels are in motion taking us toward this world of more data-driven digital marketing but we all know we're not there yet. This is particularly the case in Australia and as well as other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, where we are well behind our colleagues in EMEA and the US along an inevitable road to a data-driven advertising future. But we are on an inevitable track and one that will require much more industry dialogue and attention along the way.

http://www.mediamind.com

The coming Malaysian Media Conference (MMC) 2012 is themed as 'Digital Disclosures'. MMC will attempt to unravel the issues in terms of understanding the new connected user, optimisation of current working processes (role of technology), managing client expectations and Big Data through these exciting times ahead. The Malaysian Media Conference will frame this scenario and the way forward for all thinking media practitioners... Email  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to register your participation!