Why social data will dominate online ad targeting

Google and Facebook have come to dominate the advertising landscape, and as such brands have little choice but to use those platforms’ proprietary audience data to target users with advertising. At the Cannes Lions festival in June, The Wall Street Journal reported AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong saying: “I think what you’re seeing is the emergence of walled gardens as a strategy from those top players. The larger companies have been getting more difficult with data overall.&rdqu