Advertisers' goals run the gamut from improving customer experience to driving awareness for particular brands. But when it comes to campaign management, ad industry insiders are especially focused on precise audience segments.

In a January survey of 450 advertisers, publishers and tech developers in North America by Winterberry Group and the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), 62.0% of respondents said that improving audience segmentation to support better ad targeting was one of their top campaign management priorities. Other priorities, such as cross-channel advertising and data integration, didn’t garner as much interest among those polled.

As people in the ad industry continue to place further emphasis on audience segmentation, some vendors are banking on this trend. For example, Nielsen has invested millions in building an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that automates the creation of custom audience segments for marketers.

Data management platforms (DMPs) are also being wielded for audience segmenting purposes. According to a January survey of US advertisers conducted by Advertiser Perceptions, ad inventory discovery is the top criterion that drives DMP selection. This is because DMPs help marketers find inventory that pairs well with their custom audience segments. Identifying target audiences then helps programmatic ad buyers decide what inventory to purchase.

Another major campaign management priority in the DMA and Winterberry Group survey was being able to map customer behavior across different channels. This may become more challenging for marketers as users shift their media consumption to mobile devices, where cookies are less effective for tracking.