CPG advertisers have long relied on audience personas to understand their current and potential customers. These personas aid in the development of brand strategies, positioning, communication strategies, creative messaging, media planning, and data targeting. However, with the rapid evolution of media and increasing investment in the digital space, a pertinent question arises: Should CPG brands still use personas for digital media audience targeting?
Our answer is no. Here’s why:
Much richer data is now available to inform targeting decisions. The breadth and depth of data at our fingertips is unimaginable to most outside of advertising. Nearly everyone is targetable in one way or another: the products they purchase, the places they visit, and the content they consume all generate data. Almost every retailer is tracking their consumer’s purchase behaviors, and this purchase behavior data is incredibly powerful—especially for CPG brands. In comparison to targeting a persona, the data is unmatched.
Take diapers, for example. A persona might suggest targeting a “suburban toddler mom.” While in many cases this might be accurate, this targeting may miss some shoppers and mistakenly include others. The primary diaper shopper could be a grandparent who brings diapers during monthly visits. Or the parent might have already completed potty training and no longer needs diapers. With the wealth of data available today, there is no need to guess who is in the market for various products. We can now understand the entire purchase history of each shopper at a specific retailer. So instead of targeting the “suburban toddler mom” we can now target “purchased diapers x days ago” or “purchased competitor diapers.”
But what about attracting new customers?
Mass marketing and a reach-based strategy has long been the approach of many CPG brands. Using retail data signals to define your target audience doesn’t mean that we’re sacrificing reach; we’re maximizing our impact with a more relevant audience. Digital data signals can be used to target category purchasers or category-adjacent purchasers. For example, if someone has never purchased diapers before, how can we identify their potential interest? We can look at their purchases of related products, such as prenatal vitamins or other items for pregnant mothers. Beyond retail data, we can also consider users with baby registries or those reading articles about preparing for a new baby.
Retail data also plays a critical role in measuring media performance. While this rich data has been available to advertisers marketing through Retail Media Networks, many retailers are now unlocking the data and allowing access to closed-loop reporting within programmatic platforms. This level of detailed reporting enables advertisers to refine their strategies and continually make data-driven decisions.
So where are personas helpful?
Personas still have a place in understanding consumers and developing brand/ communication strategies. But we now have more powerful data to be used for digital targeting purposes. It’s about choosing the right tool for the right job.
We challenge CPG brands to test rich digital data signals for targeting alongside their traditional personas and compare the results. Based on results we’ve seen in testing, we’re predicting CPAs cut in half—demonstrating the power of using the right data. By embracing these new methodologies, CPG brands can achieve more precise targeting, improved media performance, and ultimately, better business outcomes.
But it doesn’t stop with CPG. The power of retail data can be tapped for non-endemic advertisers, too—but that’s a topic for another article.