blog

Digital identity: The most valuable commodity of our age?

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:49:01 +0000

While digital records have been around for decades, it is only relatively recently that we have seen the market responding to the value of personal data as our increasing use of the internet helps us build useful digital identities. Alex Willcock dicusses the potentials of personal online data.

See full article at iMediaconnection here

Publicis' Audience on Demand platform integrates with VisualDNA for privacy compliance

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 08:27:41 +0000

Publicis' Audience on Demand platform has integrated with VisualDNA, enabling their Online Display advertisers to easily target users via our comprehensive opt-in VisualDNA audience data.

The tie-up has seen Publicis fully integrating the VisualDNA dataset, bolstering their targeting capabilities, and giving direct access to our more than 120 audience segments covering interests, tastes, preferences, intents as well as bespoke brand segments, whilst fully respecting privacy. (New Media Age)

Read full article here

Google's Invite Media partners with opt-in data provider VisualDNA

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:27:41 +0000

Google’s dynamic buying platform Invite Media has teamed up with user-profiling tool VisualDNA to let buyers target users via opt-in data.

The tie-up will see Invite Media integrate VisualDNA data, bolstering targeting capabilities around more than 120 categories covering interests, tastes, preferences, intents and bespoke brand segments. (New Media Age)

Read full article here

Tim Evans interview with ExchangeWire

Thu, 26 May 2011 14:44:22 +0000

ExchangeWire published an interview with Tim Evans, Head of Product Management here at VisualDNA about our product offering, daily deal personalisation, and user privacy. Read more of Tim's interview on ExchangeWire.

Tim: "...we’re mainly a data play, trading our data on platforms like Invite Media, AppNexus, DoubleClick Ad Exchange. We do occasionally buy media for advertisers when needed, using platforms like the DoubleClick Ad Exchange to do so. We don’t wish to compete with media agencies ..."

VisualDNA Video: Personalization

Tue, 24 May 2011 16:16:09 +0000

View our new video: 'Making Personalization Personal'.

VisualDNA & Behavioral Targeting - Alex Willcock

Fri, 06 May 2011 12:33:29 +0000

‘Just ask me and I will tell you’

You don’t have to think too hard about pretty much every form of behavorial technology, young or old, to see that lurking behind the masquerade of the ‘smart algorithms’ is technology that does its business in the shadows. In truth, in almost every case, this occurs without a user knowing what’s really going on. Online behavior is tracked and interrogated, shared and traded in order to gain advantage in the process of selling or ‘recommending’ something.

Seemingly, all our ‘connections’ from our contacts, to our personal photos are seen as legitimate fuel for these engines to grind away and conjure up something new that will hopefully spark us into action to look, click and eventually buy. Who knows how many of us really care about what we’re giving away when we open up our social graph, it’s likely though that more of us would care if we really understood the implications of doing so.

If what’s going on right now is acceptable, where does this type of activity stop? Where is the line, the border that delineates what’s acceptable and what’s not? A quick glance into the future and it’s not hard to see how our social graph could indeed provide a blueprint to every moment of our day, tracking all our movements from the moment we awake and switch on our phones to the second we close our eyes and drift into sleep. If indeed this is the case, there’s no doubt it could provide rocket fuel to propel recommendation engines into another orbit of optimization – but does this take us beyond the world of what’s acceptable?

We’ve set out to approach the problem of understanding people in a different way – we simply ask people questions in order to understand who they are. We’ve proven that if you take the time to ask someone what they want and need; to ask them what matters to them, what makes them tick, they will happily tell you, as long as they get something in return. In fact, over 93% of people that start our products complete them spending an average of four minutes each in the process.

Our technology rapidly gains an understanding of an individual and gathers data that enables us to predict what an individual is likely to like and ‘why’ they are likely to like it.

Our data is proven to increase performance in conversions. In every case where we have profiled users, our data has outperformed other methods used.

What’s different about VisualDNA?

We gather data others either find hard to get or cannot get. This is both in terms of the actual data collected and through the extreme efficiency of the method of collection. Put simply, VisualDNA allows you to know people in a way that other methods are not able to do.

By definition, behavioral targeting relies on a user ‘doing’ something that then can be understood. VisualDNA captures data that a user may never normally display through their online behavior. For instance, we can understand the core dimension of a user’s personality – extraversion, agreeableness etc. We can also understand aspects of their lives that they may never normally bring online such as how they exercise or what they normally eat, the type of transport they use to get to work. We can also understand their ‘taste’ and style preferences, which typically is extremely difficult to understand.

Give the user more than you take

Since the outset we’ve lived by this simple mantra. If someone is going to take the time to share some information about themselves, make absolutely certain you give them back more than they have given to you. In our experience, if you do, they reward you with really accurate information, will often share it with their friends and will always respond positively to the recommendations you suggest to them.

VisualDNA's Product Portfolio Brochure now available

Tue, 03 May 2011 16:42:55 +0000

VisualDNA's range of products can now be seen by downloading our brochure here

VisualDNA Analysts Report on the Social Commerce Market

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:58:35 +0000

Subscribers to group buying sites are largely female, young and affluent. But what are the demographics of actual deal purchasers and more importantly, what do they look like?

Read our report

VisualDNA & Social Commerce - Alex Willcock

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:00:54 +0000

The deal space is going nuts right now but along with the massive growth are increasing levels of concerns for both customers and merchants alike.

If you’ve signed up to any of the big providers, it probably won’t take you long to find out that by far the majority of the deals are totally irrelevant to you. Chances are, you’ll either tune out and not even open the email, or perhaps worse, unsubscribe.

For the merchants, the biggest challenge is not the quantity of customers, it’s the quality of the customer they are sent. The whole idea of selling products at a loss is in the hope that they will spend more over time and that their network will also become aware of your brand. Well, not all customers are equal and there’s no point selling a cheap deal to someone that will never be able to afford any of the full price products.

VisualDNA technology solves both these problems by ensuring customers get relevant deals and merchants get relevant customers.

What’s Next in Behavioral Targeting? - BtoB Online

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:14:17 +0000

What’s Next in Behavioral Targeting? - Interview with VisualDNA's Leighton Webb.

VisualDNA to launch tool to let consumers see the value of their data - New Media Age

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:00:00 +0000

VisualDNA to launch tool to let consumers see the value of their data - New Media Age

Specific Media CTO McCartney joins VisualDNA - New Media Age

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Specific Media CTO McCartney joins VisualDNA - New Media Age

Mirror's work with VisualDNA - End of Business as Usual Blog

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 09:00:00 +0000

The End of Business as Usual Blog features VisualDNA after reading about our work with Trinity Mirror.

You can read the blog here.

Targeted Ads - IT Business Edge

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Lora Bentley continues IT Business Edge's behavioral targeting feature.

Content Delivery - IT Business Edge

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:00:00 +0000

IT Business Edge's Lora Bentley talks to our very own Leighton Webb about VisualDNA.

Read the interview here.

Data Commoditization - Silicon Angle

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +0000

"VisualDNA's no Social Sell-out - Escaping Data Commoditization" - writes Silicon Angle's Kristen Nicole.

Do Not Track - Rough Type

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Leighton Webb presents VisualDNA's answer to the consumer privacy debate.

See more here.

US Expansion - Techcrunch

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Techcrunch have kindly featured the exciting news of our launch in the US.

The article can be found here.

New Media Age on VisualDNA's Opt-in Profiling Technology

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:45:03 +0000

Today, we're pleased to share the latest New Media Age article about VisualDNA technology.

Gina Lovett's article announces that 'thousands take Mirror's profiling personality tests' and underlines how 'Trinity Mirror's tests sidestep privacy concerns as more than 100,000 users opt in to profiling since the scheme's June launch.

Click here to download the full article.