Know Your Audience

It goes without saying that in any industry or field, knowing your audience is crucial. Whether you're a speaker about to give a presentation or a company about to enter a new market, understanding the people who will be consuming and using your product/service/good will ensure that your efforts are not in vain.

In this vein, publishers need to start focusing on understanding their own audience in order to take advantage of the growing opportunity to attract buyers who want to know this information. Online publishers are starting to see their bottom lines get hammered as advertisers look towards audience targeting and buying to guide their buying decisions, rather than traffic volume and pageviews. In this increasingly competitive world, publishers who don't know their audience are at a total disadvantage, as they are unable to service these increasingly sophisticated (and higher paying) online advertisers.

Comscore by Cirino, Zheng [Paperback] (Google Affiliate Ad)

Why is it important for publishers to know their audience? Simply put, knowing your audience allows you to offer targeted offerings to advertisers, which in turn allows you to command higher CPMs when offering deals to buyers. In the increasingly data-driven and ROI-focused world of online advertising, publishers need to make sure they are servicing their advertising clients by offering demographics and (hopefully) psychographics on their user base and audience.

Luckily for publishers, there are a number of ways to approach this unique problem. Many data companies exist to anonymously track and monitor audiences, providing publishers with the data they need to command higher CPMs in any direct deal negotiations. Companies that publishers should look for include Quantcast, comScore and eXelate. For each of these companies, a simple bit of code is dropped on the publishers website which then sends back information via the code or "pixel" to the companies, providing the publisher with valuable information on their audience and demographics. This data, in turn, can then be used to make informed decisions on where to focus outreach efforts to buyers, ensuring that any sales efforts taken forth will thus be put to good use.

Know your audience, and command a higher CPM. It's that simple.