A union of consumer survey data with programmatic advertising could help political campaigns pre-screen audiences for better ad targeting in the 2018 midterm elections. Two digital companies, Lotame, a data management platform for advertisers, and Survata, a market research/survey firm, have announced a partnership to create what they are calling a "segment validation product," per a recent Adweek story. Lotame will supply more than 8 billion data points to Survata, which will ping back against those points and survey an actual audience. A client of the partnership product can then independently target the right participants with ads. Andy Monfried, founder and CEO at Lotame, explained to Adweek that the new partnership will enable clients "to automatically verify third-party data validity as part of their data strategy" and "deliver on the promise of 'real-time' actionable insights through the use of enhanced data." Cleveland-based ad agency Marcus Thomas is already in line to test the system, according to the report. But it's easy to see the potential appeal to political marketers--for example to improve targeted response for fundraising-based digital advertising. Chris Kelly, Survata CEO, acknowledged to Adweek that, while brands will likely always be the primary focus, "this could indeed be used for political audiences, too." So expect to see some 2018 political candidates and causes drawn to a promise that their programmatic media buys can be launched with "full confidence the audiences they are targeting contain the right people," as Kelly says. For the complete story: http://www.adweek.com/digital/an-ad-tech-firm-and-a-survey-player-want-to-improve-programmatic-buying-by-pre-screening-audiences/
