Solving Advertising Challenges with Data and Personalization

© 2018 Valassis Digital, Inc. | valassisdigital.com | 800.916.9960 1
UNDERSTANDWHAT’SMOVINGCONSUMERSDOWNTHEPATHTOPURCHASE
SOLVING THE FOUR
KEY CHALLENGES OF
TODAY’S ADVERTISERS
OBTAININGAFULLONLINE-OFFLINEVIEWOFCONSUMERS
MEANINGFULLYENGAGECONSUMERSTOPROPELTHEMTOPURCHASE
OFFERVALUEWHILERESPECTINGPRIVACYvalassisdigital.com | © 2018 Valassis Digital

Despite the investment and innovation
in advertising technology over the past
decade, advertisers remain frustrated with
their inability to reach the right consumers,
at the right time, with the right offers that will
lead to sales. To provide a true one-to-one
experience, brands and their advertisers
need to leverage both online and brick-
and-mortar customer data, however the
process of capturing, organizing, and acting
on that data to deliver highly personalized
experiences isn’t easy. In fact, research
indicates over half of in-store shoppers
expect a personalized experience, yet less
than one in five actually get it. Worse, more
than three-quarters of online shoppers
expect personalization, but just 23 percent
of brands can deliver.
1. ComScore’s 2017 “Cross Platform Future in Focus” report
2. Dscout https://blog.dscout.com/mobile-touches
3. Forrester Consulting, “Pursuing the Mobile Moment”, commissioned
by Verve June 27, 2017
The long-standing promise of advertising
technology has yet to be fulfilled, and the
challenges of today’s brands and advertisers
only stand to worsen if better understanding
consumer behavior and acting on those
insights isn’t prioritized. Furthermore, while
the latest advertising technologies have
undoubtedly produced some great benefits,
the media formats, channels, screens, and
services available have ballooned, and this
multiplicity of options has led to fragmented
programs where performance is difficult for
advertisers to interpret.
To make matters even more challenging,
brands and advertisers are facing an ever-
shrinking window in which to capture
consumers’ attention. Procter & Gamble’s
chief brand officer recently revealed that
the average digital ad is viewed for just 1.7
seconds. Only 20 percent of ads are viewed
for two seconds, which is the minimum
standard for viewability.
While these challenges may seem
unsurmountable, there is a silver lining on
the horizon. New advances in intelligent
media delivery, including improvements in
data accuracy, personalization, optimization,
and measurement, have the potential to
make advertising more effective than ever
before. Below is a look at how we are
evolving ad tech for the greater good.
INTRODUCTION
01 | valassisdigital.com | © 2018 Valassis Digital

1OBTAINING A FULL ONLINE-OFFLINE
VIEW OF CONSUMERS
Thanks to the ubiquity of mobile devices, cellular
broadband, and Wi-Fi, consumers shop online anywhere
and anytime. And because consumers have so many digital
devices and take them everywhere they go, advertisers
have an opportunity to fully understand consumer
behavior by looking at their cross-screen lives. It’s this
union of all digital activity, and the ability to catalogue
real-world consumer behavior, that now promises greater
engagement based on more relevant advertising.
Unfortunately, though, accurately deciphering online-
offline consumer behavior isn’t feasible for the majority
of advertisers today. Too many use targeting that isn‘t
based on real-world, comprehensive views of consumers.
Worse, many overly rely on incomplete consumer profiles
restricted to over-used cookie pools, retargeting profiles,
and syndicated data.
ADVERTISING CHALLENGE #1

1
SOLUTION #1
DATA AND PLATFORMS THAT REACH AND
ACTIVATE CONSUMERS ACROSS ALL CHANNELS
In particular, work to capture the following key, consumer
data points:
• Location Data: A consumer’s location, and information
about who they are and what they’re interested in, is
a high priority for progressive advertisers. However,
when a premium is paid for location data, fraud
instances tend to spike. A partner with a highly flexible
technology platform, like Valassis Digital, can help
by offering the ability to ingest massive amounts
of data from multiple sources and determine which
data to keep and/or filter out, all while focusing on
driving impact and providing real-time optimization of
advertising campaigns.
• Personalization: Tailoring messaging, channels, and
timing to the unique needs and preferences of each
individual consumer must begin with an examination
of the campaign creative to confirm that it’s based
on signals (such as location) that indicate status and
progress in the consumer journey. For example,
advertisers should adjust personalization strategies
to make sure they’re not sending consumers in cold
weather climates ad units for sunscreen or beach gear.
They also need to put consumers in the driver’s seat by
providing relevant, useful information that bolsters the
customer’s experience by speaking to what consumers
are looking for and ready to buy at that moment in time.
In fact, research shows 59 percent of consumers want
real-time, personalized offers designed especially for
them.
• Customer Graphs: Building a view of the consumer
that can update in real-time is an essential first step in
establishing a long-term understanding of customers.
This profile can then influence campaign activation by
filtering down to the optimal channel for each individual.
Customer graphs can also be leveraged to track and
measure the success of ad campaigns by displaying
true, in-store impact, without relying on traditional,
empty online advertising metrics.
DEMAND CROSS-CHANNEL
ACTIVATION CAPABILITIES
CHALLENGE #1 TAKEAWAY:

When building customer graphs, it’s
important to analyze the entire consumer
journey, including where the person lives.
Advertisers can take a home address and
map it to digital identities to understand
the consumer’s interests and what she is
actively in-market for, where she prefers to
VALASSIS CONSUMER GRAPH
TM
IN-MARKET SIGNALS
What I want to buy now
STORE VISIT
Stores I like and
frequent
INTEREST OVER TIME
Things I enjoy
throughout my life
PURCHASES
Products and
categories I prefer
CUSTOMER ONBOARDING
I’m your best customer
DEMOGRAPHICS
My observed age, gender,
ethnicity, and income.
shop and how she prefers to get information
from brands. Combining all of this data
provides advertisers with rich information
that’s longer-lasting, more meaningful, and
more durable than simple cookies or other
data that could be gone or obsolete by
tomorrow.

22
ADVERTISING CHALLENGE #2 SOLUTION #2
MEANINGFULLY ENGAGE CONSUMERS
TO PROPEL THEM TO PURCHASE
With consumers today seeing anywhere between 4,000
and 10,000 advertisements each day, breaking through
requires advertisers to reach consumers in the ways they
prefer. They also need to be able to fulfill consumer demand
at any given moment, on any given screen, and at any given
place, and activate consumers by getting them into a store
and inciting them to buy.
INTELLIGENT MEDIA DELIVERY THAT’S
CHANNEL AGNOSTIC AND FLEXIBLE
Media companies often have an inherent bias, focusing on
an advertising channel that serves them best. As a result, the
brands that rely on those firms for their advertising efforts often
have disjointed campaigns (from the shopper’s point-of-view).
Brands need media companies to take into consideration the
consumer’s overall behavior, their holistic path to purchase,
and how, when, and where he/she prefers to receive brand
messages and offers.
Rather than taking a biased, channel-focused route, advertisers
need intelligent media delivery, i.e. media that’s channel
agnostic and flexible to how consumers engage.
While technology is certainly part of the solution, it’s not the
end game. Instead, a brand’s ultimate goals should be to:
• Understand where
consumers are on
the path to purchase
• Make a real connection
with their audience at
the right time
REACH CUSTOMERS
ON THEIR TERMS
• Create delightful
experiences
for their buyers
• Deliver powerful brand
messaging at scale across
the channels that matter

33
ADVERTISING CHALLENGE #3 SOLUTION #3
UNDERSTAND WHAT’S MOVING CONSUMERS
DOWN THE PATH TO PURCHASE
A crucial challenge is being able to better understand
what’s working to influence the customer journey. Many
advertising agencies are too focused on overall campaign
measurement, rather than analyzing what combination
of channel, message, and/or product is successfully
motivating a segment of consumers to act. Advertisers
need to know not only how their campaign performed, but
also how it’s contributing to brand success, and how the
parts of the campaign (i.e. channels, messages, timing,
product, etc.) are working.
MEASUREMENT AND ATTRIBUTION THAT’S
CONNECTED TO THE REAL WORLD
To determine what marketing levers and approaches are working (and
which one’s aren’t), brands need to expand their data sources to get a
360-degree view of the customer journey. Specifically, they need to:
• Measure how ad spend moves the revenue needle. Engagement
metrics such as click-through rates won’t cut it. Brands need to
understand the real-world sales impact—i.e. does the ad actually
drive people to a store to purchase the product?
• Do something with the measurement data. It’s not enough to know
that a campaign resulted in sales. Advertisers need to analyze the
data to understand how today’s campaign can grow sales with the
next campaign.
• Demonstrate the value of the company’s marketing efforts. Brands
need to assess foot traffic and sales spikes to understand what drives
consumers to stores. Not only can they then see what’s working, but
they can share that value with their retail partners.
EXPECT MORE FROM YOUR
CAMPAIGN MEASURMENT

4
ADVERTISING CHALLENGE #4
OFFER VALUE WHILE
RESPECTING PRIVACY
Many advertisers have turned to data in an attempt to target
high volumes of consumers in a less intrusive fashion,
pulling from IoT-based sources such as Alexa, Google Home,
Nest, Fitbits, or even connected cars. However, all of this
new available information raises serious privacy issues. In
fact, leveraging such data can appear downright creepy.
Worse, the way in which advertisers use this data has been
overly-automated and not sufficiently personalized, further
cementing consumers’ overall impression that leveraging such
data is intrusive, not helpful.
4
SOLUTION #4
ACCURATE DATA TO DRIVE
EFFECTIVE PERSONALIZATION
Respecting privacy, — i.e. using existing data to provide
relevant, personalized experiences that matter to the consumer,
isn’t just an altruistic approach to marketing. Today’s consumers
expect it, and brands who understand this can take a pragmatic
approach to drive more personalized experiences and achieve
better response via cross-channel engagement. Additionally,
brands stand to realize significant improvements via in-store
results.
Best-in-breed advertising technologies can provide advertisers
with solutions and approaches that delight consumers, offering
real, tangible value and convenience by making the most
relevant offers at the right time, place, and through the right
medium. Specifically, such technology can offer:
• More relevant, personalized offers that provide real value
and convenience, delivered to consumers through an
optimal channel
• Increased brand loyalty from consumers as a result of
receiving more relevant and desirable offers
• Greater advertising ROI without increasing budget or
media spends
• A better understanding of which ad formats consumers
enjoy, don’t enjoy or don’t respond to
• The ability to tailor ad formats, messaging, time spent, and
location accordingly, either at an individual or scaled level
DON’T LET YOUR DATA BE CREEPY
-MAKE IT MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL

4
Marketers have been waiting for advertising technology to
improve by offering a full offline view of consumers and the
ability to meaningfully engage with them through the complete
range of distribution channels. They’ve been asking for better
ways to shepherd consumers down the path to purchase and
offer them real value while respecting their privacy. Finally, that
evolved technology is here with Valassis Digital, the only solution
that offers the following:
• A complete consumer graph that unites individuals across
their devices, connecting their interests and purchases
within an aggregated framework that automatically keeps
it fresh and up-to-date, complemented by accurate location
intelligence that captures consumer data at the one-to-one,
household, and neighborhood levels
• The ability to engage individuals across all channels such as
display, dynamic mobile, video, social, email, and coupons
• World-class optimization, measurement, and continual
learning, so marketers can update campaigns in real-time
and launch more effective future campaigns based
on past findings
• Superior match rate and accuracy that filters out inaccurate
data so brands can consistently make the right offers at the
right time to the right consumers

The key to great advertising is understanding
consumer behavior. And to understand
consumer behavior, advertisers need to observe
consumers in their natural habitats, both
online and offline. Valassis Digital has acquired
decades of online and offline observational
consumer data, taking into account location,
accuracy, personalization, and attribution. We
understand consumer behavior holistically and
can back it up with unmatched media delivery
that reaches more than 500 million consumers
daily. Our ability to deliver to the uniqueness of
just one consumer or to every household and
device in the U.S. is unmatched, and we’re one
of the few industry organizations committed to
bringing back the integrity of advertising.
CONCLUSION
By consolidating all relevant consumer
information to build actionable profiles, enabling
filtering through the most optimal channels for
each consumer, and measuring the success of
campaigns via true, in-store impact, Valassis
Digital is able to predict consumer behavior and
establish compelling media moments for brands
and retailers that spur activation. To join us in
our mission to better understand and serve
consumers and advertisers alike, or to learn
more about our available solutions, please visit:
ValassisDigital.com

THE VALASSIS DIGITAL DIFFERENCE
Valassis Digital technology predicts
consumer behavior and builds compelling
media moments for brands and retailers.
Our solution assists advertisers in
meeting client goals by providing
greater personalization via a complete
consumer view, better response through
cross-channel engagement and proven
performance via in-store results.
We leverage real-world data to build
custom predictive audiences and
measure each campaign to align with
relevant KPIs and enable high-performing
cross-channel reach to resonate at key
moments in the customer journey. Valassis
Digital technology empowers brands
and advertisers to deliver exceptional
campaigns centered around consumers
and their daily lives to better drive action.
Valassis Digital works closely with Valassis,
the industry’s leading provider of print
media solutions spanning direct mail,
coupons, and newspaper inserts. Together,
we reach 99 percent of all U.S. households
with printed offers and integrated media
every week, offering a permanent, offline
distribution channel, as well as a great
source of insight into family and individual
buying patterns and preferences. Our
technology also allows advertisers to locate
consumers who are ready to transact on
a geographically-specific basis, thereby
giving advertisers the most effective and
proven way to move the consumer down
the purchase funnel.
Valassis Digital’s recent acquisition of
marketing technology company MaxPoint
has brought more consumer intelligence
and digital channels together. This has
yielded greater personalization and
more effective campaigns that reach
consumers at key moments in their buying
journey. By providing true in-store impact,
Valassis Digital and MaxPoint’s combined
technologies deliver a high-performing
synergy of consumer, household, store, and
neighborhood targeting.
Existing MaxPoint customers now have
access to additional consumer promotion
intelligence for better targeting, including
coupon redemption/category purchase by
neighborhood filtering and clear delineation
of promotionally sensitive audiences. Also,
with Valassis Digital, MaxPoint customers
gain expanded channel solutions to drive
consumers to action, such as dynamic
mobile (including geo-fencing and store-
level reporting), email, and digital coupons.
Creative services are also now available to
MaxPoint customers.
Valassis Digital customers now have
the ability to integrate unique, online
location intelligence with other Valassis
Digital solutions, which enables a more
complete and integrated view of the digital
consumer for better planning, targeting, and
measurement purposes. By gaining access
to more online and offline data applied
to individuals, households, stores, and
neighborhoods, and additional execution
channels to reach consumers, Valassis
Digital customers can implement highly
targeted and optimized campaigns. They can
then tap into connected insights that can be
applied to future campaigns.

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Solving Advertising Challenges with Data and Personalization