Why Skipping Audience Personas Is Wasting Your Ad Budget

Lorenzo Zefferino: I always say common sense is not a common thing. That’s actually what my father said. Common sense is not a common thing.

Jeanniey Walden: Lorenzo, we had to come all the way from Jersey to Miami so we could finally sit down.

Lorenzo Zefferino: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeanniey Walden: You and I have known each other for a couple of years now, and you’re one of my favorite people because you think so innovatively and out of the box. And you’re at Evergreen. Tell everybody watching what you do.

Lorenzo Zefferino: At Evergreen we’re a barter agency, or trade agency. Today they call it principal-based buying. There are a bunch of ways to call it these days. What we do is focus on clients’ assets that are depreciating, secure them as clients, then translate that into media and buy it on a value basis, then convert it to value for our clients. As the digital world has evolved, we’ve realized there’s a data play that needs attention, specifically around audiences, but not knowing who the user is exactly. So we focus on identifying who the audiences are, creating personas, then partnering with data partners to make sure we’re getting the right segments at a value as well.

Jeanniey Walden: I’ve worked at ad agencies before, and building personas is so key to working with clients. But the world sometimes forgets about building personas and just rushes out to do the ad buy. Why do you think that’s happening?

Lorenzo Zefferino: There’s a lot of data showing the core segments around third-party data work, you have the large players who’ve measured it for years. But it has evolved. People’s online behaviors have moved beyond single transactions or being identified on cookies or IDs. The other ways to identify people are based on behavior. If someone’s a sports fan, they might also like cooking; if they like cooking, they might like gardening; if they like gardening, they might like shopping. It doesn’t mean they’re one singular segment. You have to identify the person as a whole. So leveraging audiences, AI technology, and other data sets to find that person lets you be more specific about who you’re trying to reach.

Jeanniey Walden: I was just going to ask you about AI. How does AI play a role in defining segments, profiles, and personas?

Lorenzo Zefferino: There are a lot of different technologies, and AI to me is so broad. It could be AI identifying users’ behaviors online, tracking them with certain agents. It’s also used for curation of supply, and for optimization. AI is so vast, you have to focus on certain ones at a certain time. If you go all in trying to figure it all out at once, you can get a little confused. That’s the critical aspect of having a media planner, either inside a business or with an agency you trust.

Jeanniey Walden: For everyone watching and listening, let’s talk about the critical role of a media planner.

Lorenzo Zefferino: I always say common sense is not a common thing. That’s what my father said. Common sense and logic come into play. As much technology as you have, there’s still a human element to what you put together. You have to know a human, understand what they want, understand the media channels and inventory sources that are performing well. You have to use your human element to make things more specific to the humans you’re trying to reach. AI helps you do it more effectively, but the human element of understanding who it is and what we’re trying to do is very necessary.

Jeanniey Walden: Human in the loop.

Lorenzo Zefferino: Human in the loop.

Jeanniey Walden: So how are you taking all of this at Evergreen and putting it to use for clients?

Lorenzo Zefferino: Media buying and media inventory is the strong play for how we operate. We realized there’s also financial value and benefit we can provide clients by leveraging relationships in audience and data plays. Instead of solely focusing on inventory, getting those at a preferred rate and sharing that benefit back to clients, we do the same with audience and data providers. Going beyond inventory, understanding who the user is, using technology to create the persona, targeting it with preferred partners that let us be more efficient. Putting it all together so our clients get more value at the end of the day. It’s a win-win-win.

Jeanniey Walden: Win-win-win is my favorite line.

Lorenzo Zefferino: I get made fun of it all the time, because usually it’s a win-win. Everyone wins.

Jeanniey Walden: Lorenzo, thanks for being on Liftoff.

Lorenzo Zefferino: Thank you very much.

Jeanniey Walden: And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Liftoff. I don’t know about you, but I am inspired. Follow us at Liftoff Show on every social channel, and make sure you catch our next episode.