30 Years of Digital Targeting Assumptions Just Got Torched
If you’re in digital marketing (calling yourself a marketer of any stripe means you are, it’s 2025 FFS), then you may be doing your utmost to ignore a study by Adlook on the accuracy of target segment data from “popular data providers.” Especially if you work for a “popular data provider.”
I’ll first tell you what Adlook found, and then more interesting, I’ll tell you how the Gen2 marketing world is responding to this revelation (foreshadowing: lipstick on a pig).
In very short, Adlook examined target segments sold by aforementioned “data providers,” then asked the actual people in the segments about themselves.
Here’s a summary of the highlights:
- 47% of the people who the data said were women, were men
- 50% of the people who the data said were men, were women
- 67% of the people that the data said were parents said they had no children
- 52% of the people who were supposed to be 18-34 said they were over 35
- 60% of the people who were supposed to be over 45 said they were under 45
- 76% of the people who were supposed to be married said they weren’t
Marketing is the only industry in which people can post “the differences between branding and marketing!” and get massive engagement. Can you imagine some structural engineers posting “the differences between compression and tensile strength!” as if it will be an epiphany.
Short answer: no.
Yet, the marketing crowd responds with: “This!🙌” and “Taking notes!” And this is a $1T industry responsible for being the driving engine of gross domestic product.
Assphinctersezwha. Seriously.
GEN2 ADVICE FOR THE LOSS
A PhD researcher, someone I respect notwithstanding his penchant for living in a Gen2 world, had this advice on how to deal with the discrepancies:
Do some round-robin tests on different segments and targeting options
Dig into some 2nd party audiences.
Don’t target at all. Let the product benefits do the talking and attract people.
It may sound reasonable, but it’s more Gen2 noodles against the wall, accompanied by hope and prayer. More wasted media spend. More of the same crap that guys like Bob Hoffman and Augustine Fou have been railing against for years (and me? Can I join this party?). On that note, ya know what’s really astonishing? Digital marketing was born c.1995, and it has taken 30 years for someone to get around to doing this study. Any hypotheses on why?
Yes, you in the back row.
What’s that? Ah, exactly. You nailed it: it would spell the obliteration of Madison Avenue. Well said. And spot on.
To all those who write “data-driven” on their LinkedIn profiles [cue sad horns], it might be time for a refresh.
Adlook themselves said:
“Our analysis reveals that brands often rely on outdated demographic segments, resulting in inefficient and costly campaigns. Legacy media-buying strategies and limited offline tools, like panels, force complex consumer profiles into broad categories such as 'Women 20-44.' In today's digital age, this is unnecessary-brands can now target consumers based on real interests and behaviors, reducing wasted spend and reliance on outdated assumptions.”
Unfortunately, this is also a Gen2 assessment of the problem.
ENTER Gen3
Just like engineering, there are some immutable (unchanging) facts about how people respond to stimuli (think ads or video or content) that are not up for debate, like Newton’s Laws. The problem is that marketing has a century-deep culture of opinion-based debate, and there are many who are reluctant to embrace a future that does not contain this culture. It defines them. No one I know would willingly walk into an identity crisis, so no shade. However, progress and evolution are inevitable.
Welcome to the future.
THE TWO SIGNALS THAT MAKE DATA USEFUL (OR USELESS)
The “data-driven” crowd take data like the above train-wreck soup, and “interpret” it. This means they impose their own biases and opinions on it such that, when it is pushed out the other end with a grunt, it looks nothing like what the original data were supposed to reflect. But none of this matters anyway in Gen3 (thankfully).
1. Affinity
If you are marketing feminine hygiene products, then you need females, as they have affinity for the product.
If you are selling reading glasses, a need that falls squarely into the older generations.
If you are selling beer…you get the point.
The resonance response (dopamine + oxytocin) is what precedes action. In other words, purchase. Even memory, getting into the brain. In Gen3, this is the only objective because every Gen2 objective comes after the resonance response. Triggering the resonance response is a matter of building a stimulus (ad/video/content) that is aligned with the cognitive traits of clusters (groups) of consumers. This is what has created every customer, ever, so we shouldn’t call it Gen3, we should call it Gen0.
BIG TAKEAWAY: if your data is not telling you these two bits of information, affinity and the cognitive traits of your audience segments, then you’re pushing piss up a dirt hill with a rake with one hand and applying lipstick to a pig with the other. Gen3 is the biology of customer creation.
Your job as marketer is not to create ads the people like, on the assumption that if they like it they will magically find their way to the cash register because “that’s just the way it is.” That’s not the way it is. Your job is not to create ads-as-entertainment, going for the “oh, so creative” accolades. Your job is to sell product and build a brand in the process. If liking does happen, bonus points. But it’s a second- or third-order effect of your primary responsibilities:
Extract cognitive traits via affinity.
Engineer and validate cognitively resonant messaging
Create customers.
If you felt some dopamine at any point during this missive, I have a super secret email club. Answer the admission question correctly, and you can join the smartest marketers on the planet. Hope to see you there.