An Audience Shouldn’t Be a Category. It Should Be an Understanding

Traditional targeting often starts with a predefined group and then looks for opportunities to reach it. MarketStorm begins with behavior. The MarketStorm Intelligence Engine™ analyzes behavioral signals and patterns that may indicate a developing need, changing interest or emerging problem. Those patterns help us distinguish broad relevance from something much more valuable: emerging intent. 

Consider two consumers who look nearly identical on paper. They may live in the same neighborhood, have similar household incomes, be approximately the same age and share many of the same interests. Demographically, they belong in the same audience. Behaviorally, however, they may be completely different. One may have no current need for the advertiser’s product or service, while the other’s recent behavior may indicate that something has changed and a need is beginning to emerge. 

That difference is at the heart of Audience Intelligence. We aren’t simply trying to identify people who resemble the customer. We are trying to understand which consumers may be becoming relevant now. 

Behavioral signals can indicate potential intent, but a signal alone isn’t enough for MarketStorm to continue targeting someone. Once the MarketStorm Intelligence Engine™ identifies a potentially relevant audience, an initial ad is served. That gives us the opportunity to verify that the audience member is human rather than automated traffic. 

Once human-verified, that consumer can become eligible for MarketStorm’s Intent Retargeting. This creates an important progression in the audience: behavioral intelligence helps us identify potential intent, activation gives us the opportunity for human verification, and verification allows us to continue influencing that consumer across available channels. 

This is different from conventional website retargeting. Traditional retargeting generally waits for someone to visit the advertiser’s website before the relationship begins. MarketStorm can begin earlier, once emerging intent has been identified and the consumer has subsequently been human-verified. We don’t simply retarget a signal. We continue the relationship with a verified human who has demonstrated relevant intent. 

Identifying the right audience is only the beginning. Consumers rarely move neatly from awareness to consideration to purchase. They research, stop, encounter brands, reconsider, compare alternatives, search, leave, return and eventually act. Intent and influence interact throughout that process. 

This is the thinking behind JourneyIQ™. Rather than assuming that consumers follow a predictable funnel, JourneyIQ™ reflects the reality that people move through a much less orderly period between emerging intent and eventual demand capture. 

Within this architecture, the different parts of MarketStorm’s technology work together. ProtoSignals™ helps us recognize when something may be beginning. Audience Intelligence helps us determine who matters. Human verification strengthens the audience. Intent Retargeting allows us to continue the relationship. JourneyIQ™ helps connect that intelligence as consumers move across channels and moments. 

Advertising platforms have become extraordinarily sophisticated at finding consumers likely to respond within their own environments. We use those technologies and benefit from them, but MarketStorm Audience Intelligence serves a different purpose. 

We don’t want our entire understanding of the consumer to be defined by the targeting options available within a single DSP, media network or channel. The MarketStorm Intelligence Engine™ creates an intelligence layer that sits above activation infrastructure. Our understanding of the audience begins with consumer behavior, while the advertising platforms provide the infrastructure through which that intelligence can be activated. 

That distinction becomes increasingly important as the advertising ecosystem changes. Targeting capabilities will evolve. Media products will consolidate. Algorithms will become more automated. Inventory will move between platforms.