Here at AdExchanger, we love data. We tell you how brands are using it to target consumers and leverage programmatic buying. But beyond that, it can often be confusing just how marketers use all of the data collected throughout their entire marketing strategies.
So we decided to ask the data, analytics, and insights companies this question:
“What are some key use cases for how you work with clients?”
Click below or scroll down to read their responses:
- Cory Treffiletti, SVP of marketing at BlueKai
- Eric Stein, SVP of online solutions for Epsilon
- Eugene Becker, SVP of product for eXelate
- Josh Herman, VP of partner and product strategy for Acxiom Corporation
- Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services
Cory Treffiletti, SVP of marketing at BlueKai
“We definitely see a shift in how our Fortune 100 marketers are implementing data-driven use cases. While the lowest hanging fruit has traditionally been the ability to take online site data for re-targeting and prospecting, we’re seeing marketers take it much further; expanding in both the variety of data ingestion (adding more data) and data activation (where data is pushed) they tap into.
Today’s marketers have access to a gamut of data intelligence, whether it’s online site data, campaign data, mobile data, social data or offline audience data from a CRM solution. Historically, these data points are disconnected, residing in different databases and in different areas of the company. Therefore, they are untapped. As marketers work towards a holistically data-driven organization—and get comfortable with the idea of data centralization—they naturally want to layer in as much data as possible to strengthen their audience profile and increase the efficiency and performance of their customer engagement efforts.
For companies with a strong offline database, such as retail or CPG, the use case of digitizing offline intelligence is growing in popularity. We are seeing examples such as a telecom customer taking CRM data and using it to target existing customers who are due for a contract renewal with new phone ads, leveraging attractive discounts to prompt a contract renewal, across a wide digital footprint. We are also seeing them layer in website browsing data, including both first and third party data, to make that profile even richer.”
Eric Stein, SVP of online solutions for Epsilon
“Epsilon manages over nine petabytes of data on behalf of our clients. First party data drives the intelligence for retention, upsell, acquisition and analytic activities and Epsilon is at the core of ensuring that data is actionable for all of them, no matter what the channel(s).
One of Epsilon’s products, SecureConnect allows clients to securely and safely bring offline data online and distribute it to almost any media platform they want to use; including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, multiple DSPs and DMPs, etc. Once the data is distributed, we work with those clients or their agencies to execute campaigns.
We worked with a large device manufacturer to audit their media spending. Based on first party and our own third party data we were able to identify existing and prospective customers and let the client know which parts of their media buys were reaching those target audiences and which were not. Epsilon successfully identified that over 15% of the media providers were underperforming based on insights powered by CRM data that went beyond traditional KPIs, such as measuring CTR and online conversions.
We’ve integrated omnichannel campaigns for dozens of retailers where they are now using display, catalog and email to drive sales that are then tracked through the conversion and measured holistically for incrementally and lift.”
Eugene Becker, SVP of product for eXelate
“The marketing technology industry has embraced the value of first party data as a powerful and clear signal for audience targeting, especially when combined with trusted third party data to scale. When it comes to driving immediate bottom-line impact, third party smart data that is accurate, actionable, and agile, amplifies first party data for accelerated customer conversion, all to maximize MROI.
eXelate provides a two-pronged solution to this challenge that address both the data and media sides of the audience buying equation:
– maX Models: By harnessing audience maximization models, eXelate identifies online users with a profile similar to users identified by first party data, which drives immediate scale.
– Cloud Infrastructure: By leveraging our greater than 90 media integrations, eXelate identifies the best inventory pools to find these target users. This drives greater scale across media by allowing marketers to plan media buys across inventory pools with the highest target reach.
Because our smart data is the largest collection of third party data on the planet, clients can maximize their reach by utilizing their first party data as a seed. More accurate and actionable scale means more revenue and higher returns.”
Josh Herman, VP of partner and product strategy for Acxiom Corporation
“The reason you can’t bake Mrs. Fields cookies in your kitchen is that you can’t get the exact same ingredients. You may think you have the same ingredients—flour, sugar, chocolate, etc.—but unless you know exactly which kind of flour and its gluten ratio, precisely what type of sugar, the delightful taste-bud performance will not be the same. It’s not your fault. It’s just that Mrs. Fields has first-party data regarding a recipe that has worked for over thirty years.
It is the same for marketers and their marketing databases, those treasure-troves of first-party data they’ve been building for years, with data that help them understand their customers better than any outsider’s recipe approximation. In fact, with the tried-and-true ingredients as a foundation, seasoned marketers add additional flavors (insights) with predictive and descriptive third-party data and voila, new hit cookies (campaigns) are born.
Marketers continue to invest in their first-party data platforms because campaigns employing the intelligence in that data yield what they love: empirical evidence and predictability. Targeted campaigns using first-party data don’t live or die on metrics like impressions and clicks alone. They tie to a richer set of metrics in the database such as recency, frequency and monetary value; revenue per user; lifetime value; or good old-fashioned profitability. These are the metrics the CMO can use to “defend the spend,” to produce the metrics that make he or she a gourmet in the eyes of the board.
Every celebrity chef on the Food Network will tell you, a successful recipe is about starting with the best ingredients first.”
Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services
“The convergence of data-driven marketing and technology is creating new opportunities for how we work with our clients. One of the top challenges for many of the CMOs we work with, is the proliferation of multiple channel and device choices for consumers. This is coupled with the increasing complexity and winding path-to-purchase of today’s hyper-connected consumer. This ‘always on’ consumer requires marketers to leverage first party data platforms to align their campaigns around the full customer experience.
Our focus is on cross-channel marketing platforms that provide the opportunity for marketers to obtain a true, complete, and panoramic customer view. Most important is the ability to respond to customer behaviors immediately by triggering optimized messages and content based on real-time customer actions (via multi-channel or single channel). It’s all about intelligently bringing brands and customers closer together. One example of this is that Experian Marketing Services can match client-defined customer email addresses through Facebook Custom Audiences in order to show non-email openers or inactive subscribers a relevant Facebook ad as a way to re-engage or reactivate them to a brand or a website.”
