HT Media launches first-party audience targeting solution - HT One Audience

HT Media has launched its in-house audience targeting solution for advertisers – HT One Audience.

HT One Audience is HT Media's first-party targeting solution that offers unified customer cohorts built from anonymised and privacy-safe customer profiles of close to 140 million digital users and over 150 million video viewers, across HT Media’s 20+ digital channels such as Hindustan Times, Livehindustan, Livemint, HT Tech, HT Auto, OTT Play, Slurrp and many more.

HT Media said, “HT Media’s digital reach can now be utilised by brands through 50+ scaled industry-specific cohorts using which they can reach precise target cohorts for their marketing goals with HT One Audience, leading to higher ad relevance, and in turn, higher ROI.” 

Data is at the heart of any modern marketer’s toolkit today, but owing to the updated privacy regulations across the globe and the inevitable sunset of third-party cookies, advertisers and marketers who want to thrive in the post-cookie era must rethink their digital strategies and look beyond third-party data.

“This is where HT One Audience comes in, as a sustainable first-party data-based solution for marketers looking to future-proof their marketing strategies,” added HT Media.

Puneet Jain, CEO, HT Media - Digital Business, stated, "1st party data has emerged as the focal point of advertising for brands looking to ensure privacy-first, brand-safe & personalized user experience. With the launch of HT One Audience, we are elated to be strategic partners for advertisers looking to be future-ready, through our best-in-class tech-stack that utilizes audience insights at scale.

He further said, “HT One Audience is powered by HT Media’s homegrown Customer Data Platform (CDP) that ingests over 100 million events per day across HT Media’s 20 digital properties to profile users through their various actions & interests in a privacy-first environment. By leveraging the CDP as its key unification tool for user identity, HT One Audience can segment its users to help drive more targeted campaigns, while also personalizing user journeys and serving more tailored content recommendations, delivering delightful experiences for our readers and tangible value to advertisers.”

“The HT One Audience algorithm utilises multiple interest-based and demography-based signals, using encoded customer data and builds profiles based on 3 key data sources; primarily behavioural, keyword and campaign data, to profile every user and then suggests which platform to target them through, depending upon a brand’s target audience.”, said Yudhvir Mor, Group Chief, Product and Tech Officer, at HT Media.

For instance, if a user reads stock market or cryptocurrency articles on a business news platform, they may simply be bucketed as a personal finance enthusiast going by the nature of the platform. However, HT One Audience has the capability to dive deeper. In effect, a single user may be a personal finance enthusiast, but also a foodie, watching recipe videos or reading restaurant reviews. HT One Audience can help brands target their target cohort irrespective of the platform, utilizing the entire HT Media network as a whole.

“Productised cohorts such as HT Nivesh - a cohort comprising of avid investors and personal finance enthusiasts, stock market followers, and more such sub-cohorts created for BFSI brands; HT Binge, a targeted cohort for cinephiles, OTT buffs, and music lovers created for media brands are some examples of pre-existing cohorts which can be targeted across the HT Media network, consequently increasing click-through rates (CTRs) for campaigns, leading to higher ROI,” said Mitesh Desai, Head of Sales Excellence and Agency Partnerships, HT Media.

“We are also constantly engaging with brands to understand their goals and customize audience cohorts for their campaigns in addition to the existing industry-specific cohorts.”, he added.

The publisher also reported that they are deploying best-in-class measurement techniques like Brand Lift Studies to ensure tangible outcomes for brands. A leading tech giant improved its brand metrics across the funnel with HT Media digital ads with a 16% lift in brand awareness and an 8% increase in purchase intent, while targeting audiences from B2B, Tech, and BFSI segments. 

One of India’s leading financial product companies utilized HT One Audience, for campaigns where home loans and business loan propositions were targeted specifically to real estate investors and SMEs respectively. These campaigns were then optimized for placement, messaging, and device types, leading to a 2.5X increase in CTRs of the campaigns compared to the industry average.

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