Between Content and An Ad Is You

The most important person on the Internet is you — with everybody wanting to know what you read, where you shop, who you talk to and where you go.

It is no secret that marketers, advertisers, retailers, pollsters and disruptive tech companies use this information to get their advertisements, content and agendas in front of you whenever and however they can.

The result? It can seem that between you and the content you want there is always an advertisement. And seldom is it the right ad. Sneakers you were shopping for (and bought) follow you onto your business news feed, your kitchen appliances show up on your sports feed and political ads have a mind of their own popping up in your YouTube videos.

This is a big problem for those organizations that make their living creating, curating and delivering the content you were trying to reach.

ALM Media’s then Group President Jeff Litvack put this best at his MarkLogic World Customer 360 talk in April last year: “Our customers, readers and advertisers, have changed radically.” Jeff reports readers now can pick from “so much content out there that it is almost a commodity” and advertisers can “reach out and find those audiences in 1000s of different ways.” This puts media companies, which “used to be at the center of the universe,” in a tough position to maintain their relevance.

To combat these trends, Jeff and the ALM team’s answer is to get to know you even better than all the other players out there – and then put that knowledge to use to tailor not only what content you want to see, but also deliver the advertising and promotions you would be most interested in.

Jeff was joined in the talk by Gene Bishop, VP Technology, to detail their plan. This is a MUST SEE video for everyone in the information industries – and pretty much anyone who is online. It’s just 15 minutes and you will learn:

• The strategy for a new generation information provider to extend information delivery with customer data
• The steps to create a Customer 360 – including how the team handled mastering the data
• The full scope of the projects – the sources they tapped and the operational hooks to enable them to use this information in every type of delivery
• The results of this strategy

Spoiler: when you achieve an immediate ROI of 600% it has a big impact on your business!

Jeff and Gene aim to redefine the role of an information provider. With advertising and promotions tailored to not just what external parties know about you but also based on your relationship with the content provider and what you are actually reading, they have indeed reset the equation and put you back where you belong – right in the center between the content and the ad.

If you want to hear more of how ALM created a 360-degree customer view in just four months with MarkLogic (after trying for two years using a relational database), join us in May at MarkLogic World San Francisco. The ALM executives will be on hand to share their success — and answer all those questions you are now wondering about.