The {SLING} blog

7 “Moneyball” Quotes That Explain {SLING} Digital

We like to think of {SLING} as Moneyball for Twitter ads. So here are 7 quotes from the famous movie to help explain what we’re up to, why we do it, and how it’s changing the paradigm of ad targeting using the same principles as Billy Beane and Peter Brand.

1. “People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins.” - Peter Brand

This is the fundamental problem that {SLING} is solving in the ad world today: people who design and run campaigns are thinking in terms of buying keywords. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy keywords, you goal should be to buy audiences.

Audiences engage with you on social media, not keywords. Audiences buy your products, not keywords. Audiences become advocates, not … well, you get the idea.

Then why, today, do we still focus on keywords? Keep reading.

2. “If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there.” - Billy Beane

Imagine you’re targeting Justin Bieber’s fans. Think you’ll be able to outspend the brands willing to pay $6+ for these keywords? Most likely not. This is true for all the obvious, traditional keywords out there.

If you’re going after the same audience as the old-school thinkers, but with less time/human resources, you will lose. So how does an advertiser beat the system? By reaching the same audience (wins!) through smarter and broader, interest-based targeting.

3. “He gets on base a lot. Do I care if it’s a walk or a hit?” - Billy Beane

So, back to the earlier question: why does the world still focus on keywords? It used to be because we didn’t have insights into the audience, and so keywords were the only way to reach them. With the explosion of social conversations this is no longer the case. Today, you can mine millions (billions?) of social conversations to understand exactly what your audience is talking about, what they’re interested in, and where they find it.

With this new wealth of knowledge, targeting can become much more efficient, and that’s the premise behind {SLING}. Our Audience Intelligence platform mines the millions of social conversations that your specific audience is having, and uses all of their interests to target them — not just the obvious keywords that everyone is already using.

After all, it’s not about the keywords. It’s about the audience.

4. “Billy, this is Chad Bradford… This guy should cost $3 million a year. We can get him for $237,000.” - Peter Brand

5. “You won the exact same number of games that the Yankees won, but the Yankees spent one point four million per win and you paid two hundred and sixty thousand.” - John Henry

We’re cheating a bit, but we’ll combine 2 quotes here — both related to cost of acquisition — to share some real numbers, and highlight exactly how much value audience insights can add from a direct, dollar standpoint.

Using obvious keywords to target fans of celebrities like Justin Bieber and Snooki, MTV spent an average of $4.95 per follower through Twitter ads. With {SLING}, we got the same followers for $1.93.

For details, you can read the complete case study here.

6. “Any other team wins the World Series, good for them. They’re drinking champagne, they get a ring. But if we win, on our budget, with this team… we’ll have changed the game.” - Billy Beane

That’s what we’re doing here — we’re changing the paradigm of audience targeting.

Gone are the days of targeting them based on direct keywords, or even demographic information. Using the wealth of knowledge now available through social conversation, targeting can now be done much more efficiently by seeing exactly what (and what else) they love and talk about.

The best part: Changing your game doesn’t just sound good, it helps you win.

7. “How can you not get romantic about baseball?” - Billy Beane

Well… how could you not be?