If you’ve read John Battelle’s “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” the single concept that blew you away was the power Google could potentially wield with it’s access to what Battelle called “the database of intentions.” Across the Web, every search reflects a need, and Google search now captures 80 percent of those searches. What might someone DO who could interpret and quantify that data stream?
The folks at Blue Kai wondered the same thing. Then they asked – what if such a database could be focused on the inquiries closest to consumers’ purchase points – and what if ANYBODY could buy that data on an auction-based exchange? The Bellevue, WA-based company began aggregating the anonymous “intent action” data of 145 million unique U.S. users from e-commerce, online travel agency and auto comparison sites. It now claims to be the Internet’s largest source of such Internet consumer intent data. Anybody who wants to dispute that probably has a really short email ending with google.com. (And the Google Commerce Search API will certainly make things interesting.)
Today the company released its first slice of its observations, revealing such searches as price search by auto make and model, travel destination search by airport or city or activity on price comparison sites. Think about that for a second. “Earnings season” may reveal how corporations DID in the prior quarter, but searches on what consumers WANT is a much better reflection of what’s happening, or is about to happen within a month or two.
The obvious market for this information is marketers – it’s an instant reflection of the impact of any given campaign targeted to these three sectors (with “retail” as a group reflecting several more). But BlueKai wants to move more prescient marketers "upstream" from the "how'd I do?" inquiry. Properly used, intent data tells marketers where they need to plan and target their next salvo for maximum impact. The quarterly report BlueKai just developed is free; this “Pulse” report offers “a new view into user intent beyond search.”
Says Omar Tawakol, BlueKai’s CEO, “Search advertising has long been the gold standard for online marketers seeking to connect with consumers based on intent.” But that’s just a start; there are other more “detailed signals” of intent, he said. Shopping comparison sites are likely the next stop. BlueKai has negotiated access to such sites and has tried to process and encapsulate the insights from such indicators as a snapshot of consumer in-market shopping trends.
Among the insights from this first edition: Users are shopping the Internet for cars two months before their actual purchase. Not surprisingly sports models over-index what’s actually sold. Still, BlueKai makes the point that that two-month window is extremely fertile ground for targeted advertising. Echoing Katherine Koegel’s projections for Q4 ad spending, Blue Kai also finds that smartphones dominate cellphone interest. The Blackberry Curve and the Apple iPhone had the largest number of “intent actions,” in the prior quarter, capturing almost a third of total actions. LG’s models also appeared popular, but the lack of Nokia’s in this group should give some investors in this dominant player serious pause.
So you're not confused about what BlueKai is selling -- it's not an ad network and it doesn’t sell impressions. It’s upstream from that, providing data on demand for marketers, ad networks or publishers as needed to boost the quality and scale of their campaigns. The company’s registry lets data providers earn revenue when their data is accessed, but also protects user privacy. Consumers can see what marketers know about them, edit their online preferences and earn rewards in the currency of charitable donations. All intent data is gathered anonymously.
My own observation? Wall Street analysts will be the first market to jump all over this. Smart marketers will be right behind them.
