Banks and universities are spending up big on data in Australia, placing a premium on demographic data to reach potential audiences on real time bidding exchanges.
The insight comes from the latest Eyeota report, which has launched a quarterly tracking report to see which sectors are buying up the data to better target customers, and what sort of data they are buying.
Eyeota operates a data marketplace, meaning it is well-placed to determine how advertisers are buying data and what data they need.
The finance sector came out on top in Australia, with the lion's share of the data purchased socio-demographic in nature.
This includes things like gender, age, location, and represented 66% of total data spend in the Australian market during the fourth quarter of 2014.
Meanwhile universities were also heavy spenders compared to the average, again, mostly after socio-demographic data.
However, while universities bought twice the data that automotive players did, the automotive sector is spending the most on audience data worldwide, with a focus on intent purchasing data.
Eyeota co-founder Trent Lloyd told AdNews that the desire for auto brands to snap up intent data was a function of their marketing departments.
“Automotive brands invested heavily in audience data; specifically in intent data as they wanted to reach out to potential auto buyers. Their purchasing habits are mostly driven by the demands of their campaigns – to engage in-market users wanting to buy a car," he said.
Lloyd also said banks and universities were playing the long game with its purchase of socio-demographic data, building a view of customers over time.
"While intent data might be useful as it indicates their intent to purchase these big-ticket items (private banking and tertiary education), it doesn’t paint a full picture of their target audiences. They only know that this particular user might potentially be interested in their product/service. It doesn’t tell them about the profile of their target audience – such as their age, gender and income," Lloyd said.
"With sociodemographic data, these advertisers are able to target more effectively as the data helps them to zoom precisely into a user. They can then use this data to plan for future campaigns because this data reflects actual user behaviour and precise demographics enabling them to understand their target audiences as human beings.”
Total investment in data increased by 49% in Australia quarter on quarter, growing at only half the rate of the entire APAC region, which showed 101% growth for the same period.
“Steady growth in Australia is expected given it is the APAC region’s most advanced programmatic market. Much of the unparalleled 100% plus growth across APAC we are seeing currently, is being driven by sporting and sporting events advertisers,” Eyeota CEO Kevin Tan said.
This APAC trend is consistent with Australia where sports and events are the fastest growing advertising sectors, followed by food and beverage.
The report comes hot on the heels of Eyeota announcing that it had tied up with data management platform Lotame.
For Lotame, the deal means its customers can access Eyeota's data along with their own first-party data. For Eyeota, it represents another way to gain traction in the Australian marketplace.
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