Creating targeted experiences on mobile is a challenge for many marketers because of the lack of cookies on mobile. Time Inc. is addressing the challenge by matching its own user database against social media user databases, leveraging third-party insights to pinpoint mobile users and then layering in social media data. 

?We can determine exactly what brand a user resonates with, then we can determine what kind of content do they like from the brand,? said Sol Masch, director of mobile sales and strategy at Time Inc. ?From there, we are able to determine what content is the user most likely to engage because it is trending in the social space. 

?It is a kind of one, two three punch,? he said. ?Taking the context of the brand, layering on the data, in terms of behavioral, demos but also content consumption and then adding that real-time factor where you get this really targeted experience to the right user. 

?And we are breaking that down by platform, to look at those patterns on desktop, tablet and mobile. So we can not only not only program for our sites but the ad experiences as well.?

Time Inc. has 62 million unique mobile users on a monthly basis. Some users only use mobile, some only desktop and others regularly move between platforms. 

In order to reach users in the digital environment, the company is leveraging its database of over 104 million print users and matching it up with user profiles for large digital platforms to look correlations. 

This strategy has enabled it to identify users who are readers of one of its magazines. From here, the publisher is able to deliver content on third-party sites that is relevant to a user. For example, a Real Simple reader might see a chocolate recipe gallery while on a weather site. 

?Because we match up dataset, we know the content is going to resonate with them,? Mr. Masch said. 

To bring the strategy into mobile, Time Inc. is using cookies on desktop to determine where its users are going on the Web. It takes those segments and pushes them into the mobile environment by working with third-party data companies to find mobile users. 

For a campaign with Infiniti, Time Inc. paired knowledge of a user?s favorite magazine with knowledge of preferred content types to deliver a personalized content feed on third-party sites with the brand woven in throughout the experience. 

The publisher is also beginning to look at how content is trending across social environments. For example, it is tracking the volume of shares that content gets per hour to determine what content is breaking and becoming popular. This content is ranked and looked at on a real-time basis, with editors informed as to what content they should be posting. 

It also reviews what is resonating across devices so it can program content differently by platform. 

?We took the same capability and brought that into a sponsorable experience for ad clients,? Mr. Masch said. 

?We wanted to be able to deliver to users something that they haven?t seen yet,? he said.