In the television industry, understanding where different shows have common audiences is vital. With modern data tools, executives can easily access and manipulate up-to-the-minute audience overlap analysis information on their laptops, helping them identify where their audiences intersect.

The Challenge

This well-known international brand wanted to track individual user behavior – across shows and over the course of a 12-month period – so the marketing team could understand the strengths between different audiences and properties. They were especially interested in audience overlap, both to drive efficiency in tune-in and marketing initiatives and to inform content-creation and distribution strategies. The brand was one of many in a large network that had grown organically and through acquisitions. As a result, individual brands were siloed, and access to corporate resources was often limited.

The analytics team accessed detailed user data through its Adobe Analytics system. However, the large volume of data presented a challenge: each month contained three gigabytes or more of user data, and each quarter almost eight. They needed a full year’s worth of audience overlap analysis to get the best picture. Although the parent company was building the infrastructure to manage such vast amounts of data, the brand wasn’t scheduled for onboarding for another 12 months.

The team tried building an audience-overlap matrix in Microsoft Excel, aggregating in Adobe Analytics. But this was time-consuming, offered limited ability to slice and dice the data, and didn’t allow them to analyze trends over time. They were locked into a high-level, summarized view of their data.

The network engaged us to accomplish three goals:

• Create a proof-of-concept using two full months of user data.
• Design an audience-overlap matrix viewable and manipulatable on laptops, enabling broad internal access.
• Implement a transition strategy allowing in-house analysts to complete the remaining 10 months themselves.

The Solution

We used R to perform the data munging and audience overlap analysis, a program capable of handling large datasets and performing complex calculations. The data was then fed into Tableau, which offers rich visualization capabilities to display a robust audience-overlap matrix.

Ensuring that the matrix could run on laptops was critical to widespread organizational use. As is common in many companies, research groups work closely with site and editorial teams. The audience overlap analysis helped the site team in design and enabled editorial to provide actionable insights to content producers.

Finally, we documented every step of the process and trained the client’s internal analysts on importing data into R, running calculations, and creating matrices in Tableau.

How Did It Work Out?

The analytics team achieved key goals:

• Deep understanding of audience overlap – With a deep understanding of its shows, the network can now discern which signals are meaningful, allowing marketing to significantly improve efficiency.
• Immediate solution in place – The network gained a complete solution to perform analysis while waiting for the parent company to build next-generation infrastructure.
• Shared insights among internal teams – The Tableau matrices are easy to use, so data and insights are now freely accessible to editorial and content partners.
• Three-month engagement and handoff – By taking over the project, the brand’s team became smarter and learned new data skills, increasing self-sufficiency.

What is Audience Overlap

Audience overlap is the measure of shared audiences between different shows, websites, or platforms. It helps brands understand which segments engage with multiple properties and optimize marketing, content creation, and distribution strategies. By performing audience overlap analysis, companies can identify overlapping viewer groups, craft tailored campaigns, and increase engagement efficiently.

Frequently ASK Question

What is audience overlap analysis and why is it important?
Audience overlap analysis identifies common segments between audiences, such as viewers of different TV shows or users across digital platforms. It helps companies craft effective marketing campaigns, improve content creation strategies, and increase engagement, optimizing reach and driving targeted efforts.

How does audience overlap analysis improve marketing strategies?
Using audience overlap analysis enables targeting of overlapping segments with tailored campaigns. For instance, if two shows share an audience, marketers can develop campaigns for both, maximizing efficiency. Leveraging audience overlap insights ensures messaging resonates with the right people, improving conversion rates and ROI.

How can I perform an audience overlap analysis on my website?
To perform an audience overlap analysis on your website, use tools like Adobe Analytics or Tableau. These platforms track user behavior across pages, giving an in-depth view of segment interactions. By analyzing this data, you can identify key overlaps and optimize content and marketing strategies.

What tools are best for conducting audience overlap analysis?
Top tools include Tableau, Adobe Analytics, and R. They help aggregate large datasets, visualize behaviors, and identify overlapping audiences, making them ideal for data-driven strategies that boost engagement and marketing efficiency.

Can audience overlap analysis help with content distribution strategies?
Yes. Audience overlap analysis is essential for refining content distribution. By understanding overlapping segments, you can target content to the right audience at the right time, optimizing distribution across channels, driving engagement, and improving content performance.