Get Smarter With Audience Intelligence Platforms

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you come across the word “Audience Intelligence Platform” (AIP)? Something about supercomputers scanning terabytes of data while implementing data algorithms to extract insights about the audience, right? Well, you’re on the right path but some correction is needed.

Audience intelligence is a part of artificial intelligence (AI) which has revolutionized digital interactions. Experts mention you shouldn’t take audience preferences lightly, since they can have a significant impact on overall buyer satisfaction levels.

AIPs gather and analyze public data from various online sources to help businesses gain deep insights into their target audience. This information is used by marketers to conduct research, create customer segments, and spread the word to help businesses reach their buyers faster.

Come to think of it, the Alexa device in your home is nothing but a sugar-coated spy machine, put there by leading marketplaces like Amazon to study your behavior. Every single day as you communicate with Alexa, you give it more and more information about your preferences and that information is sufficient to map out your buying behavior; giving Amazon insights to market specific products that you wouldn’t mind paying for because they’re just what you need!

Get it yet? Audience intelligence...

Moving on, now that we’ve established a basic understanding of the concept, let’s dig a little deeper into these platforms and see what all the fuss is about.
 

History Of Audience Intelligence Platforms

The history of AIPs dates back to the early days of the radio (not literally, but the concept is actually pretty basic and has been around for some time).


The first commercial radio stations started broadcasting in the 1920s and began selling advertisements. In order to target specific audiences, they would buy information about the ages, genders, and other characteristics of listeners. By the 1940s and 1950s, several radio audience research companies were dedicated to selling this information.

These early companies used surveys or phone calls to reach their customers. But as phone lines became more widespread, companies started using computer-based technologies to collect data from across the country. This new technology allowed companies to gather more accurate information about their customers by letting them reach people in more places at higher speeds. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, there are several types of audience intelligence platforms. Some use automated contact centers that call people in real-time and ask them questions about their demographics and interests. Others take advantage of data collected from online platforms such as Facebook or Google Analytics. They use this information to create segments of people with similar traits or interests so they can market more effectively to these groups. Finally, some platforms leverage third-party data sources like Nielsen ratings reports or TV rating data to create segments based on viewing habits instead of demographics or interests.

Let’s see how this all works!
 

How Do Audience Intelligence Platforms Work?

There is often a disconnect between what businesses think they know about their customers and what customers think they know about a business. AIPs aim to solve this by helping companies unify customer data into a single customer profile using 2nd and 3rd data sets. The holistic profile created by the aggregation of data from various digital spaces helps businesses understand personality traits and dynamic daily behaviors.

Here is a brief segmentation of the audience intelligence platform in action:
 

• Audience Identification

  To accurately target customers, you should know who your customer is. Audience Intelligence Platforms enable businesses to identify their target audience and provide valuable insights about them. These platforms provide businesses with the right information needed to target these customers and engage these individuals successfully through campaigns.

• Identity Resolution

  Modern marketing strategies are based on customer experiences which include online and offline buyer journeys. Modern businesses have to think about various touchpoints of the customer when creating identity resolutions.
  
  In the past, the identity graph of the customer was based on flat data that was collected months in advance. Audience intelligence platforms combine online and offline customer data to create an identity graph that helps unlock massive value in converting customer intelligence into better customer experiences.
  
  AIPs help businesses maintain fresh and accurate identity graphs through continuous and complex processes. These platforms capture new data points and provide enterprises with a customer data enrichment process to make targeting more flexible and effective. With the use of audience intelligence platforms, marketers can connect the dots of different digital touchpoints and build accurate customer journeys.

• Universal Identifier

  After the identity resolution process, every customer is assigned a universal identifier which can be assigned on a customer graph. The universal identifier enables marketers to extract and append all available customers and desired touchpoints to the customer record. The whole process is done in real-time through API or batch data processing. The intelligence platform ingests data from a multitude of sources to enrich customer profiles and bridge online and offline connected worlds. Marketers are then able to connect all data points of the customer and build customer journeys.

 

Why Do Businesses Need AIPs?

As the digital revolution accelerates, brands and businesses are being forced to adapt to stay relevant. In this new landscape, consumers are using multiple channels to find, purchase and engage with products and services.
 
As a result, brands are scrambling to keep up with the rapidly changing customer preferences. There is no such thing as a “one-size-fits-all” marketing strategy. Only by understanding customers and offering them the right type of product or service, can businesses build a loyal customer base that will be more likely to buy from them repeatedly.

Audience Intelligence Platforms play a critical role in this respect by helping create value for the target audience through engaging content. These platforms include automated chatbots that allow users to ask questions and receive personalized responses from a human operator and even virtual reality (VR) experiences that allow people to immerse themselves in their brand.

Much like the Alexa in the next picture that was “intelligent” enough to recognize Jeff Bezos’ intent and buying preferences...
 

Future Of Audience Intelligence Platforms

As the technology behind Audience Intelligence Platforms develops, the world will witness these platforms touching all aspects of sales cycles and customer interactions. You could see audience intelligence changing both marketing strategies and customer behaviors.

These AI platforms will not only be built with research, but also with practice. You could see salespeople assisted by AI agents on outbound calls, monitoring the tele-conversations in real-time. Using advanced voice analysis technologies, such AI would be able to infer from the customer’s tone that the customer’s problem remains and it will give the salesperson the right feedback. It will also help the salesperson to take the right approach in the next conversations with the customer.

Experts mention you could see AIPs providing segmentation and analytics of the captured data and help in messaging and personalization of the communication for better results. You could also see audience intelligence platforms analyzing customer data and helping marketers decode customer behaviors.
 

To Conclude

 
So that’s about folks! To summarize, with the modern customer wanting to spend lesser and lesser time making choices or comparing things, Audience Intelligence Platforms are all set to work in the background of practically EVERY app out there, using algorithms to study and eventually predict your buying behavior. So, if you weren’t ready to be spied on (almost) every single time you used an app, you better prepare yourself for it now.