What is a Data Management Platform (DMP)

Digital advertising has evolved a lot in recent years, entering into a new set of terms such as RTB, PPC, DSP, SSP, Ad Exchange … Today we break down the meaning of DMP, the acronym Data Management Platform. That is a data management platform, an essential tool for advertising marketing based on data about the users of an Internet site.

A DMP is a centralized data management platform that allows advertisers to create target audiences to target based on a combination of data from different sources.

Therefore, what characterizes the DMPs is that they are technology platforms that help to collect, integrate and manage vast amounts of data, structured or not. These data can be of different types:

• Data collected from the advertiser’s sources. In this sense, data can be collected from:
  • The advertiser’s website: user navigation, number of page views, …
  • Email marketing campaigns: opening rates, click rates, conversions, …
  • Mobile devices: what browsers are used, which pages are the most visited, …
  • Own spaces in social networks: number of fans or followers, “likes“, amount of shared content, demographics of users, …
  • Display actions: impressions, clicks, conversions, visibility, …
  • Data provided by customers and grouped in the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool of the advertiser.
• Data from sources external to advertisers. In this case, it is usually data such as:
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Socio-professional category
  • Interests
  • Geographic location
  • Others

The quick introduction of DMP platforms

With all the data that they collect, the DMP platforms allow the creation of demographic and behavioral segments of the users to whom digital advertising can be directed later. It is, therefore, an essential tool for the take-off of the programmatic purchase and the Real Time Bidding.

Also, the performance data of each ad is included afterward in the platform, creating a perfect feedback loop to optimize the efforts of the advertisers.

In fact, according to a study by Econsultancy, “The Role of DMPs in the Age of Data-Driven Advertising” (The Role of DMPs in the Age of Data-Driven Advertising), 68% of respondents surveyed considers that the DMP platforms are the key to the future of the programmatic purchase.

In this same study, the potential of a recently adopted technology is observed, but its use has significantly increased. The graph above shows that 58% of marketing managers said they have started using Data Management Platforms, DMPs, in the last year or two years.

How does a DMP platform work

As in all Big Data systems, data management platforms must not only be capable of accumulating a large volume of heterogeneous data but, above all, work and process them with useful algorithms so that they can reveal the information and can be used for its relevance. To be effective, Data Management Platforms work in two stages:

1. A javascript code is installed in all the pages of the website from which you want to collect the information. These are known cookies, small text files with information that is stored in the user’s browser. Its objective is to identify the user’s behavior during the time he spends in a website: what he does, in what links he clicks, how long his visits last, … There are several types of cookies:
   1. Cookies that do not require the user’s consent: They are those used at the technical level. They are necessary for navigation and equipment configuration. Among them are the language, font size or security cookies that hinder attacks against the website or its users.
   2. Cookies that do require user consent: These are the cookies of the analytical systems. They help measure user activity and compile browsing statistics. These are the advertising cookies that manage the frequency and content of the ads or the tracking that store information about the users and allow them to display advertising related to their interests. The latter are the cookies that are installed to operate the DMP platforms.
2. The DMP platforms collect the information and transfer it to the ad servers. In this way, the programmatic purchase is strengthened since smarter ads are shown and adapted to the visitors of said web pages.

Benefits of using DMP platforms

Some of the identified advantages of the DMP platforms are:

• They allow managing multiple online campaigns through different advertising networks and publishers.
• Guarantees control over data assets and help maximize your segmentation.
• Helps control advertising expenses and improve overall ROI.

In addition, as shown in the above graph, in the same Econsultancy study mentioned above, the main advantages observed in the use of DMPs are also analyzed. Among them are:

• Centralized control and standardization of the 1st party data, that is, those corresponding to the behavior of the users in the digital spaces of each brand (53%).
• The use of data that is already available for the personalization of content in email marketing campaigns, web and social media environments (51%).
• The development of rich and processable datasets of all data sources: first, second and third-party data (46%).
• Most effective display advertising (46%).
• The possibility of developing attribution models for different channels and sources and knowledge of what is working (44%).
• The improvement of the effectiveness of Cross-Channel Marketing when using insights from the DMP platforms (44%).

What are the main DMPs?

With the Big Data revolution, data providers appear on the scene, data providers that collect, aggregate and process data as well as having the ability to direct this data, general audience segments, to the rest of the platforms that intervene in the purchase cycle. Programmatic Mainly DSP and SSP platforms.

There are dozens of competitors in the Data Management Platform sector. To perform an analysis of which are the most interesting, G2 Crowd uses a classification of the Data Management Platform based on the satisfaction expressed by customers and their presence in the market.

In this way, you can build a comparison of the tools that allow you to collect and manage data that, subsequently, must be transferred to the DSP and SSP platforms. G2 Crowd does not include platforms that have 10 or fewer comments in the comparison. According to this comparison, the five main Data Management Platform (DMP) platforms in the current market are:

1.- Oracle Bluekai

The Oracle DMP platform has more than 30 branded data providers for third-party data. This gives access to an impressive collection of nearly 700 million anonymous customer profiles and 40,000 data attributes.

In this way, Oracle Bluekai provides a visualized analysis experience that gives those responsible for digital marketing the possibility to analyze and predict the success of their campaigns based on the data they have selected and on target audiences.

In addition, Oracle’s DMP is supported by Oracle Data Cloud and integrated with Oracle Responsys, Oracle Eloqua, and Oracle’s social relationship management platforms to enable immediate multi-channel benefits.

2.- MediaMath – Terminal One

The key according to those responsible for Mediamath – Terminal One is not only in the ability to collect and analyze the data. The critical point focuses on the activation of data in real time and at the crucial moment of interaction with potential customers.

The TerminalOne, data management platform, streamlines the audience segmentation workflow by centralizing them into a single user interface.

3.- Adobe Audience Manager

Adobe Audience manager is a Data Management Platform that allows its clients to build profiles of unique audiences with which to identify the most valuable segments of users. To subsequently show them the appropriate messages of the brands that interest them.

This DMP platform is based on three aspects:

1. Audience knowledge: By combining all the data sources in one place it is possible to obtain a complete view of your audience.
2. Create audience segments: By reorganizing the data, you can discover new value segments to which personalized advertising can be displayed.
3. Advertise effectively: By targeting specific segments in each channel, you can make your ad-based digital marketing campaigns more productive.

Time Warner Cable, Condé Nast, and Lenovo are among the main clients of the Adobe DMP platform.

4.-V12 Group

V12 Group has one of the largest and most respected data warehouses in the sector. It stores more than 5 billion data from consumers and businesses of all kinds. For this, it has 12 categories of different audiences and more than 1,500 data segments through millions of devices to reach the most relevant digital audiences.

The D12 platform of V12 Group is built with hundreds of data sources, both collected (3rd party data) and owners and uses a triple verification process that guarantees security and access to data.

In addition, the Data Management Platform of V12 Group allows you to obtain a unified view of your entire database. In this way, you can activate the first level data (1st party data) and build audiences of 2bd and 3rd party data with accuracy.

The people in charge of V12 Group identify the following advantages for using their DMP:

• Access to a single platform for the management of all your marketing data.
• Access to rich third-party data to discover more information about your current and potential high-value audience.
• Ability to create and manage customized segments.
• You can amplify the reach thanks to audience profiles and cloning tools.
• You can measure, predict and improve marketing results with advanced reports and analysis.

5.- Lotame

Lotame has been developing technology since 2006 to extract value from data. The advantage of this technology is that it is presented in SaaS format, so it evolves continuously to meet the changing needs of the market.

The Dota platform of Lotame was built to offer value to marketing managers of companies as well as agencies and publishers. For this, he carries out the work in 4 stages:

1. Collection: The Dota platform of Lotame allows you to collect data from the first part of websites, applications, and advertising campaigns. In addition, it will enable you to combine this data with others such as those obtained from email marketing campaigns or data stored in your CRM system.
2. Organization: At the moment of collecting the data, they are placed in hierarchies that you can use to create audience segments by selecting demographic data, interests and specific actions that you want to use in your campaigns.
3. Activation: Lotame’s DMP platform integrates with the main DSP, Exchange and SSP platforms in the market. These integrations give you full data portability.
4. Optimization: The platform includes a set of manual optimization tools as well as fully automated optimization tools.

DMP module in MDirector

A pixel is a piece of Javascript code that can be inserted into websites, mobile applications or emails to create a set of users, or what in MDirector is called a segment. This code allows you to set a cookie in the browser of visitors to your websites to later, show specific ads.

MDirector includes the possibility of incorporating pixels in your website to perform the function of segmenting and integrating public into your database.

For more information on how to combine email marketing with mobile, social and display retargeting… visit us at MDirector.

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