Advertisers target consumer searches and purchasing activity so that ads can be matched to them. That is why, if you've shopped for anything from shoes to kayaking gear recently, images of shoes or kayaks miraculously show up on your screen.
Mining Social Media Accounts
Searches and buying activity are not the only things being mined on the web. Ad-tech firms actively mine social media accounts with image recognition to find products, brands, and activities that will help their clients.
An example from the sports apparel world: an image-mining firm scores social media accounts across platforms to find images of people wearing products from a client's competitor. If they are shown wearing the rival's gear, they are targeted with the client's ads. These products can target not just products but scenarios — you don't have to be wearing the competitor's shoes; running or being on a track will do.
According to practitioners, data mining of images is now standard business strategy because sufficient scale is available. It is also an effective way to get people involved in an advertisement: metrics like conversions and clicks run five to ten times higher than with more standard methods. Some platforms process hundreds of millions of images per day, focusing on selfies throughout social media — looking for logos, products, and activities, plus sentiment indicators such as smiles.
Privacy and Accuracy Concerns?
It's one thing to be targeted for ads related to a product one has actively looked for. It's quite another to be targeted based on logos and perceptions of sentiment. Did consumers sign up to be mined when they posted their pictures?
Basically, yes. For most social media companies, users sign a standard form indicating they know their posts can be shared. Unless specifically marked as private, text posts and images can be viewed and downloaded by anyone — corporations included. Sites marked as private, however, are private: they aren't accessible to any entity the user hasn't approved.
How about accuracy? Logos are not necessarily indicating product purchase — they might just as well indicate giveaways or the preferences of a consumer's Aunt Edith. But companies engaged in image scanning are apparently quite content with the metrics they garner. Look for image mining not only to continue but to move deeper into its next frontier: video.
Smarter targeting for your business: NPA Social Media Marketing.
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