By Billy Grant, Head of Product at RealityMine
Given the ubiquity of smartphones, it feels hard to remember that as I started my career, these devices were only just achieving mass market adoption. As the internet moved aggressively to a mobile-first state and adopted applications as the principal entry route for users, businesses engaged in digital behavioural measurement struggled to keep pace.
The adoption of smartphones as users' principal device also brought an explosion in the data that users generate including:
The prospect of linking enormously rich data to a single device is clearly appealing for organisations seeking a deep understanding of consumer behaviour and preferences. This does, however, surface a broad range of complex challenges that demand consideration.
All of these measurement options demand inherent specialism. Each area brings its own unique technical challenges requiring a deep level of experience within engineering functions. Building this foundation of human resource takes time and significant investment. Beyond this, the wider organisation must also bring significant focus to bear on both product and commercial efforts.
Adopting an approach that captures extensive information from users' devices is often tempting for the uninitiated. What is often forgotten is that modern devices have significant demands placed on them by heavy usage, background running across applications, and the expectations that users rightly have around battery life. Like it or not, measurement does place an additional burden on handsets. Ensuring an appropriate balance is struck between the scope of capture and the downstream impact on user experience is clearly key.
In addition to user experience considerations, one must also consider subjective judgements of how much data users are willing to share. Beyond the tasks and permissions that a user needs to grant, there is also the question of user perception. It is easy to stray into territory that could be perceived as invasive or overly demanding of users when benchmarked to any incentive that might be offered. Ensuring a proportionate approach is adopted that considers the ask of users across permissions, the extent of measurement being executed, and the incentives offered is critical.
RealityMine’s technology allows users to share their data with organisations for market research purposes as part of a fair value exchange. Typically this comes in the form of incentive payments for users who wish to participate in a study. Additionally, informed user opt-in, transparency in what will be measured, and preserving users' right to privacy is at the absolute core of our business.
The tension that RealityMine’s Product Team needs to continuously navigate is that which exists between our clients' demands for insight and the protections that we need to ensure we do not stray into territory that puts users' privacy at risk.
GDPR and many of the wider global regulations that have used this legislation as a framework, detail key principles that we have front of mind on a daily basis.
Global regulation and platform policies generally provide an objective basis to inform our guiding principles. Beyond this, we also need to consider subjective assessments of the measurement demands that clients and prospects bring into play. Beyond considerations regarding whether we have sufficient skills within the organisation, user experience, and users' willingness to participate, we also need to bring in an ethical dimension to our evaluation. This fundamentally speaks to whether a measurement request strays too far into territory that could be perceived as sinister, creepy, or intrusive.
The title of this article aimed to highlight the challenges that we often face as an organisation. Even the relatively simple concept of measuring website browsing throws up a range of considerations. Do you simply report the domain or URL that a user navigated to? Should you consider dwell time on specific content? What about engagement with rich media or video content within a page? The relentless pace of change that we have to react to further complicates this.
With the progression to mobile-first internet access, we’ve seen significant change from the days when almost all content would be consumed through a web browser. The move towards applications as the principle access method introduced a lack of standardisation that traditional digital measurement techniques have struggled to keep pace with. Whilst many have attempted to crack the code on general usage measurement, most have been confounded when it comes to understanding what behaviours are taking place within them. This is further stretched when we consider the extent to which users across almost all markets have congregated around a small set of dominant platforms; however the scope to which the wider market understands behaviours within them has become increasingly constrained. This has also come alongside a range of fundamental and deep-rooted behavioural shifts that have disrupted a wide range of industries - consider ride hailing and food delivery as just one example of this.
With users' time centralising around a small set of platforms, the demands to understand behaviour within them continue to grow. This is particularly important given the context of advertising spend following users into these platforms. Coupled this with the pace of technological change that we have observed in the last two years - particularly platforms' adoption of AI features - and we find ourselves in a perfect storm of hard choices.
Making good choices when faced with this range of challenges is a complex proposition, but we have arrived at a robust framework to cut through the choice paralysis that we could otherwise face.
A simple rule but one that is easily broken when group-think or a compelling business case overrides more simplistic decision making. Avoiding the temptation of committing to product extensions and new features without clear sight of revenue can sometimes be challenging. No one knows the value of a feature more than your clients and prospects. Neglect this at your peril.
The level of competition that exists between technology giants has spiked over the past two years. Whether this concerns short-form video, search, or battles for AI dominance, it’s clear that a wide range of incumbent monopolies are facing existential threats. Anticipating how markets are evolving necessitates continuous review of general and specialised news sources, published company results and strategic communications, industry analysts, and AI agents to accelerate and capture relevant information. These are key inputs to guide decision making.
Client input and observation of market trends are clearly key, but identification of value is the ultimate driver of good decision making. Through hard experience, we have arrived at three key variables that support the rapid identification of value for our clients:
In future articles, I’ll be offering more detail on how this method has informed our roadmap choices for 2025 and beyond.
Billy leads RealityMine’s product roadmap, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of clients across industries. He joined RealityMine in 2018 and has worked in the digital behavioural data space since 2011. With a passion for solving complex measurement and business challenges, Billy plays a key role in shaping solutions that help clients make smarter, more confident decisions.
