Quantcast is used by many of the world’s leading publishers on millions of websites and other digital destinations, such as mobile apps, to gather and analyse cross-platform audience data.

Once gathered, and analysed, that data can be used to learn about your website audience and to research website and app-user’s behaviour across the world in order to build more effective marketing campaigns.

The data is made available through two main products offered by Quantcast; “Measure” which is provided free of charge, and “Advertise” which isn’t.

Quantcast Measure

Clearly, the reason for providing the Measure product for free is that it enables Quantcast to add to its already huge database of cross platform data from all over the Internet.

We all like a win/win situation and this is definitely one of them. Now you can accurately measure audience data from all of your digital properties, without cost, using the solution that is already in use on millions of online destinations. Once you have instaled their tracking code onto your website or app, Quantcast Measure will provide you with detailed audience and traffic measurement and analytics in return. Learn much more about the people who visit your website or use your mobile app, your network or who respond to your ad campaigns.

Marketers love to segment and Quantcast enables Flexible Audience Segmentation
Slice and dice your website and app audiences using Quantcast’s uniquely flexible segmentation facilities. It will allow you to understand more fully, in great detail, the audience for any slice of your online content, and it works just as well, wherever they are and whatever type of device they may be using in order to access it.

Demographics are good, its the kind of audience data that can really start to sharpen up your marketing campaigns. Age, Gender, Income, Ethnicity, Education, Geographical location – all of this is precious information for marketing purposes but Quantcast offers even more than that. Because of the way it collects data, with permission, from millions of websites and apps, it is able to help you to “Know more”.  With Quantcast you can go beyond standard demographics so that you can also understand your audience’s unique interests, such as how they find their way around the web. As a result, you’ll have a much better insight into who they are and what they like, all delivered to you with easily understandable and sharable visualisations.

As you can see from the example above, Quantcast can provide really detailed audience data to help with targeting your campaigns – using the above data a Car Dealership could aim their ads at audiences that are most likely to be a match for their product.

Whenever I review a product in the “Analytics” category, especially paid-for ones, I use the yardstick of Google’s free-of-charge Analytics package, (they also have a big-boys version of Analytics which is most definitely not free and which is a totally different proposition) to measure the cost-effectiveness of what is on offer. After all, if the package being offered, for a fee, does not significantly add to what Google are willing to provide for nothing, then I will have difficulty in reommending it.

None of this really applies to Quantcast Measure since it is also free and, although I haven’t yet done the full in-depth review, it appears to offer a great deal of information that Google probably doesn’t have and isn’t about to give away for free, even if they do have it.

So, sign up for a free account, install the tracking code and get the most accurate demographic and lifestyle insights for any audience you need. When you have better audience intelligence, you can attract more advertisers, if that’s what you want to do, or acquire more users effectively.

Quantcast Advertise – Take Your Campaigns Up A Notch, (or two)

For marketers who want to really up thier game when it comes to targeting, or re-targeting, accurately focused audiences, Quantcast offers its “Advertise” product. Using all the demographic and interest and behaviour-based data that they have collected, Quantcast provide advertisers with the facility to use that data to build custom audiences that meet their needs precisely and which are likely to convert at an optimum level.

The service is powered by the huge data set of anonymised consumer behaviour and helps marketers achieve their objectives for influencing audiences and generating new business. Their pattern powered advertising highlights behaviours which are unique to your best customers and lets you tailor ad delivery to your those prospects who are likely to give the best results, enabling you to predict and influencing their next action.

Powered by a massive, real-time data set.

Every business needs new customers, not just the existing ones – although they too are a valuable asset, of course. To address those audiences accurately you also need advertising technology that’s well-informed about every possible consumer. The Quantcast data set is very extensive, they compare it to having  coffee with every possible customer every hour. They then use that real-time insight into online behaviour in order to pinpoint those prospects most likely to convert, predicting their next move and getting you in front of them first.

Unlike “Measure” which is free, Quantcast charge when its data is used to target ads. They don’t publish their pricing however, since they want you to contact them and speak to a salesperson. I’ve asked around but there’s a scarcity of information – if you think this product may be for you, you’ll have to bite the bullet and contact them. In the meantime, why not sign up for free and install the tracking code – at the very least you’ll get an insight into your site traffic that you didn’t have before.