How Fandom's first-party data, FanDNA, is expanding to improve recommendations for advertisers and audiences

Wikipedia for all things fictional, fantasy and entertaining, Fandom has unique insight into how passionate internet users are about different shows, movies and video games. But the data doesn’t stop at the behavioral data around those curiosities. Fandom’s plethora of user generated content and community boards have also lended itself to the company’s first-party data collection. And after 18 years of accumulating data on favorite characters, plot lines and cross-over interests, that first-party data, called FanDNA, is sold to advertisers to inform everything from traditional ad campaigns to research & development on new projects and merchandise. On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Stephanie Fried, CMO of Fandom, discussed how her team started categorizing this data into four, affinity-based groups to help clients understand where to invest and how to best reach their target audiences. She also covered why Fandom is interested in developing the top-of-funnel, discovery side of its business. This year, the company acquired seven brands from Red Ventures, including TV Guide, to start building out data around how audiences find new programming, and is also building a new personalization tool to help recommend content and ads based on previous searches.